Here's something small to be thankful for this year: a new chapter of the story to read. Enjoy!
With the Dark Moon no longer an issue, we were released from the quarantine we were supposedly in, and went back to school on October 26. We all had our homework finished to hand in. Yes, even Bunny-chan.
I can't speak for the others, but nobody in Class 5 asked about Ami's and my absence. If the stupid genre conventions work to our advantage for a change, I'll take it.
We didn't watch the flashback episode until the end of the week, which happened to be October 31. There are worse ways to spend Halloween.
Isekai by Moonlight
Chapter R to S
One of the things that Shario-chan brought from Midchilda was a holographic display terminal. She hooked it up to my 2022 laptop – the one with the good graphics – and used it to create a virtual big-screen display so that everybody could watch the show together.
"Why are there four opening sequences for two seasons?" Ichigo-san asked while passing the bowl of popcorn to Ami.
"It was a popular show," I replied. "At this point, it had run for the equivalent of four regular seasons."
We settled in to watch the episode.
"Wow, that's a sparkly transformation sequence," Bunny-chan said as I wondered why the Lyrical reality’s version of the anime had my original reality’s North American dub transformation sequence.
Rei-san asked, "Would you rather people saw pictures of you naked?"
"Sparkly is good."
Then we saw the first of the clips from the
S season, with Mitsuishi-san asking by voice-over, "Who are those two that suddenly appeared? Are they new allies or enemies?"
I sighed. "They manage to make it all the way to the end of episode 200 without actually answering that question."
"Be nice," my fiancée said.
"I am being nice."
"Hush," Naru-san complained. "Some of us haven't seen this yet."
We watched for a while, then saw the clip where Luna-P landed on Bunny-chan's head.
"Hey! Chibiusa didn't show up that way!"
I nodded. "That's why I keep saying this reality is a close parallel to the anime, Bunny-chan."
Instead of complaining about chatter, Naru-san said, "That explains why Mako-chan and I have each other's hair colour in the anime."
"Exactly. Just enjoy the show for what it is."
So we did, until the seiyuu started talking about who gets to replace Sailor Moon as the lead character in the next season. When Shinohara-san asked in-character "Does anyone want my spot?", Makoto pulled me closer and said, "Nobody else gets my spot in this reality!"
Naru-san cleared her throat meaningfully.
"Sorry."
We watched the show in silence, until Shario-chan paused the playback at the commercial break. "Does anybody need to stretch their legs?"
"I'm good," Rei-san said while my dearest collected the empty popcorn bowl from Bunny-chan.
"The next bit is going to be new to practically everybody," I said.
"Is this where we start seeing the show's version of stuff that hasn't happened yet?" Ichigo-san asked.
"A bit, yes. Starting with the animators' impression of one of Rei-san's fire readings."
Rei-san raised her eyebrows. "Really? I've got to see
that."
Once the popcorn bowl was refilled and Makoto was sitting beside me again, Shario-chan re-started the playback and we watched the destruction of the Sailor Senshi.
"That's... actually pretty close, for an anime," Rei-san said just before the clips changed to showing each of the Senshi on their own, with the seiyuu saying in character why each of them should be the new lead character.
When Shinohara-san said, "But you don't forget the sempai you like", Makoto said, "What sempai?" before giving me a kiss on the cheek. I gave her a kiss back, while everybody else laughed at her line. Then Shario-chan rewound the playback so we didn't miss anything.
And then when Hisakawa-san said "Urawa-kun, the future is something you build with your own two hands", Ryou gave Ami a hug and said, "I like this future we're building together better than the one I would have had alone."
Ichigo-san commented, "You're quite the clean-cut gentleman in the anime, aren't you, Ryou-san?"
Naru-san grumbled, "Some of us are trying to watch the show..."
We shut up and Shario-chan rewound the playback again. Note to self: Don't piss off somebody who can make sharp knives out of popcorn, especially right after we refilled the popcorn bowl.
Finally we reached the end, where Hisakawa-san said "But, we didn't find out anything about the mysterious two. Are they friend or foe?" and Mitsuishi-san replied "Ami-chan, don't worry! When the new series starts, we'll find out soon enough!"
As the ending credits started playing, Bunny-chan turned to me and said, "Or we could just ask Robu-san now."
"And I'm not going to answer, because I made a promise."
"Ah!" Ichigo-san said. "So they're Sailor Senshi!"
I forgot she was training to be a scientist, and thus was getting good at deductive logic and remembering small details. Stupid genre conventions. "Yes, they're Sailor Senshi," I sighed.
"Well, I didn't make that promise," Hayate-chan said. "And Rob's right to not trust Sailors Uranus and Neptune. They're on our side but they don't do things our way. In fact, sometimes what they do gets in the way of what we do."
"But we end up working together, right?"
"For a very broad definition of 'together', Bunny-chan," I answered.
Rei-san gave me a sideways look. "How broad a definition of 'together'?"
Ryou replied, "The 'standing roughly in a widely-spread-out line and facing in the same general direction' kind of together. Six times out of seven, that is."
"About that whole 'who should be the lead' thing..." Sakura said.
Minako interrupted her to point out, "That was an excuse to introduce the characters to people who weren't familiar with them."
Sakura nodded. "In the anime, yes. But I think maybe we should consider changing our leadership."
"Usagi-san is Princess Serenity," I reminded her.
"And she'll stay the head of state," Sakura replied. "I'm talking about our field leader. Usagi-san has the tactical sense of a rock."
"Hey!"
"Well, you do," she said. "First off, you keep making those 'in the name of the Moon' speeches and giving up the element of surprise."
"Sneak attacks are unjust," Bunny-chan insisted.
Sakura ignored her. "Also, there is somebody here who's actually trained in strategy and tactics."
We all turned to look at Hayate-chan.
"I have to agree with the anime," she said. "We aren't the Sailor Senshi unless Sailor Moon is in charge. Besides, I don't want the job."
"But you're a much better military commander than Usagi-san is!"
"Sakura," my dearest said, "despite the name, the Sailor Senshi aren't soldiers. We're heroes."
Meia added, "And heroes need a different kind of leader than soldiers do."
"One who inspires us, not one who orders us," Rei-san said.
And Minako finished, "Somebody who we love, not just respect."
Ichiro quietly said to Sakura, "I believe we're outvoted, sister."
I chuckled. "If we were soldiers, we wouldn't have been allowed to vote at all."
Ichiro nodded. "Quite true, sir. But what of the element of surprise?"
"We're just going to have to get used to not having it. So, who has the popcorn, and what are we going to watch next?"
After the Revealing Of The Lunches the next Monday, conversation turned to the upcoming
Cultural festival. "Well, I've got my line memorized," I commented to Ami.
"Oh, your class is doing a play, too?" Minako asked. "We're doing an abridged version of
Romeo and Juliet, with Ryou-san and me in the lead roles."
"Oh," Ami said quietly.
"Hey, it's just pretend, and we all know that that relationship ends poorly anyway. I'm not trying to make a move on your fiancé, sis." The last word was in English, and I had an idea why; Minako was slightly older by the calendar but Ami had been in the family longer, so who was "neesan"? They'd work it out eventually, I was sure.
Ami looked happier after hearing that. "Thank you. We're doing a set of short scenes on Saturday to entertain people in the auditorium while the curtain is down and the stage is being set up for the next class' show."
"And I have the same line in each and every mini-play," I complained.
"You just said you have it memorized," Ichigo-san said. "Let's hear it!"
I sighed deeply, then said, "Fine." Clearing my throat, I added, "'Now, Sailor Moon.'"
Minako's eyes went wide. "You're pretending to be
us? I hope Artemis isn't writing your scripts." I don’t think she’s ever forgiven him for some of the lines he put into the scripts he wrote for Dreamland's toku shows.
"You sound
nothing like Mamo-chan," Bunny-chan said.
"Good! The last thing I want is people thinking I'm him."
"Who's playing Sailor Moon?" my dearest asked.
"Me," Ami said. "And the wig I have to wear is heavy."
"This hairdo isn't something that just anybody can wear!" Bunny-chan said with pride... as Makoto started looking at Ami sideways.
I quickly sent to her, «My dearest, it's just pretend. You're the one that I love.»
That made her happier. "We're doing a sweets café," she announced.
"Sweets from around Japan," Ichigo-san added. "
tsukisamu anpan from back home,
itokiri dango from Fukushima,
okoshi from Osaka,
yatsuhashi from Kyoto, and
chinsuko from Okinawa."
"I thought
okoshi came from Tokyo," Bunny-chan said.
"No,
it's from Osaka," Makoto insisted.
"Don't look at me," I said. "I thought
they came from Battle Creek, Michigan."
Naru-san commented. "Every so often I manage to forget that you weren't born in Japan. Then you say something like that."
Since we were at an impasse, everybody turned to our source of all knowledge, Amipedia. "Legends say that
Sugawara no Michizane discovered them during his travels, liked them, and carried them with him," she said diplomatically.
"If the god of scholars liked them that much, we'd better make a lot of them for the school festival," Ichigo-san said. Then she turned to Naru-san and Bunny-chan. "What's your class doing?"
"A jazz café!" Bunny-chan announced. "It was Naru's idea."
"Strong coffee and slow music," Naru-san added. "What else could somebody want?"
"I'll be sure to stop by," I promised. "Maybe after the club's presentation."
"What's the Conversational English Club doing?" Ichigo-san asked.
"A play," my fiancée answered. "In English, of course. But we think everybody already knows the story."
"Which story?" Bunny-chan asked.
I grinned. "'Naita Aka Oni'. Somebody here seems to think we have a couple of oni in the club, after all."
Ichigo-san and Bunny-chan both blushed. "Sorry," they said in unison.
Speaking of unison, Ami and Meia tested Saeko-mama, Naru-san, and Ichigo-san after school that day while we were doing homework at her place. None of them were able to support a Unison with any of our Devices. Saeko-mama and Ichigo-san actually tested as magic-null, just like Shario back on Midchilda.
No big surprise there, since almost nobody can support a Unison even in the Lyrical reality. If it hadn't been for whoever it was who invoked the stupid genre convention of re-making my body, I probably would have been in the same situation that they were.
I won't bother going over all of the minutiae of the school festival. Sure, it was a lot of hard work and a lot of fun, but a lot of the fun was of the "you had to be there" type.
I will mention that I was impressed by Bunny-chan and Naru-san's jazz cafe. They sold me a coffee that even Dale Cooper would appreciate, and when I said so, Naru-san thanked me for the
Twin Peaks reference. I also gained a new appreciation for Amade Yuusuke's music after hearing the full "Waltz for Akiko" rather than just the parts that were in episode 6 of the anime.
Rei-san managed to see one of our class' short plays. She couldn't stop giggling at it.
And the Drama club complimented the Conversational English club on our makeup. It was fun using Mirage Hide to change everybody's appearance instead of just mine... but we told them that Makoto and I were wearing body paint.
Speaking of Makoto and me, we ducked out before the folk dance at the end of the festival. While we both wanted to dance, neither of us wanted to dance with anybody but each other, so folk dances were a non-starter. Instead, we went to our favourite skating rink and let the regulars know that the Emerald Pair were back for the season. I'm sure that dancing on ice was more enjoyable than dancing with strangers would have been, especially when they played "
Sayonara wa Dance no Ato ni" and we almost lost the rhythm by laughing. But only almost.
And then we had almost nothing to do but study for the end-of-term exams.
"I should warn everybody that I'm not going to hold back this year," Ami announced at our first study session after the cultural festival.
"Ami-chan," Bunny-chan said with some confusion, "you're already the top student in the school. You got 870 last term."
"That was two years ago for her," Minako pointed out. "Maybe she forgot."
"I didn't forget. But a score of 870 means there's still 30 points that I didn't earn."
"Almost all of which were in P.E.," Ryou pointed out. "And you won almost every event that you took part in during the sports festival."
"Yes.
Almost."
Bunny-chan looked worried. "Ami-sama, please help me with my math homework and ignore how I beat you at Ultimate!"
I grinned. "Ami has a gentle soul; I'm sure she'll forgive you for being better than she is at one thing." After everybody – including Ami and Bunny-chan – laughed, I continued, "Seriously, we're all in a much better position than we were last term."
"How so?" Rei-san asked.
Ichiro, Sakura, and Meia poked their heads up out of our pockets. "Because the three of us are TSAB-certified instructors," Sakura said while the others took a scroll over to one wall. "Sure, our P.E. training is more martial than what most of you are used to, but we can teach from books, too."
"All three of us have already reviewed the curricula for both Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou and Toyo Eiwa Jogakuin," Meia added.
"And we all enjoy teaching," Ichiro finished as he and Meia unrolled the scroll: "AIM FOR 900!"
"Three teachers for nine students," I said. "Or, if Ami is an instructor instead of a pupil, four teachers for eight students. Try finding that ratio at a juku."
"We would prefer that all nine of you learn from us, at least to begin with," Ichiro said.
Ichigo-san grinned. "I'll take you up on that offer! Who's going to teach me zoology?"
"I will be leading the science and mathematics tutoring," Meia replied.
We settled in to a routine: three of us getting help with math and science from Meia; three more being tutored in history, geography, and classical Japanese from Ichiro; and the other three learning English and Home Ec. from Sakura. All of us would get help in all of the courses over a three-day period, learning from each of our tutors twice a week. Except for Ami, who still attended juku twice a week because some universities expected to see that on applications. They left us time to do our household chores on Saturday afternoons after tutoring.
And then there was P.E. training on Sunday mornings. No, Sakura and Meia didn't get out the Time-Space Administrative Bureau Ground Armaments Service basic training manual. Ichiro did, though, and he taught Yuuichirou-san, Ryou, and me most of the TSAB's advanced unarmed combat curriculum. While we were doing that, Rei-san's grandfather re-started Protect Esthe just for the ladies; my fiancée told me later that she was incorporating some of his moves into her own interpretation of Jeet Kune Do, and he was in turn adding some of her moves to his style.
Sunday afternoons were our fun times. So of course Makoto and I spent a lot of time at the skating rink. And, once they started
not kicking us out at closing time because they all-but-admitted that they knew we were Oni and Sailor Jupiter – which didn't worry us nearly as much as it would have before we were sent to the Lyrical dimension – we brought Ichiro, Sakura, Meia, Shario-chan, and Hayate-chan along and they became our students. I remembered from what I knew of
Nanoha Force that the Unison Devices could take larger forms outside of combat; we had five apparent children learning from us.
"See this, Shari?" Sakura asked during their first session. "There's always something new to learn! Although I don't know when people who can fly will ever use this skill," she finished quietly.
"I can't fly," Shario-chan pointed out. "This is great! And fun, too!"
"And our partners have turned this into an art form," Ichiro added while skating beside Shario-chan. Funny how often I noticed the two of them skating together during their lessons.
By Christmas, they were all competent enough to keep their balance without hovering, and Sakura and Meia were approaching my skill level on ice... but nobody was as good as Makoto.
There was that one Saturday, just before we started writing exams, that we all relaxed and ignored our studies. Because that Saturday was December 5. Happy Birthday, my dearest.
We didn't spend a lot of money on gifts, not after the day in late November when Bunny-chan asked how much would be appropriate to spend on a gift and Meia had each of us work out just how wealthy each of the people who'd been to the Lyrical reality were. Bunny-chan did the math twice, and would have done it again if Meia hadn't pointed out that she had solved the problem correctly both times.
"But that
can't be the right number!" Bunny-chan insisted. "I must have misplaced a decimal point somewhere."
"It is the correct number, Usagi-san," Meia replied. "That is Makoto and Sakura's current wealth, not including the settlement money they expect to get from JAL after Makoto officially turns 20."
"Not including..." Bunny-chan gasped as she realized just how much Makoto was worth. Financially, that is; my dearest is priceless to me. "She's going to have even more than 350 million yen?"
"That's before taxes," Ryou pointed out.
"Ah," I replied, "but we expect you to make sure our stock portfolio earns enough to pay the taxes each year."
"True. The dividends from just our Starbucks stock should cover most of that," he replied.
Bunny-chan whispered, "I'm surrounded by millionaires."
Ami looked at Bunny-chan's math. "You forgot to include the money that she gets from the Sailor Moon toku shows at Dreamland."
Meia looked over the calculations. "Oh, so we did."
"Are the licence fees that we get from those shows really worth including?" I asked. "I thought they were only enough for a convenience-store bento once a month."
"They are for you and Naru-chan, since you're each in so few of the shows," Ryou replied, "but the Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen have much larger payments. As for the toys, the ladies' dolls sell much better than ours do."
"In that case," I said, "Artemis, please put Naru-san into more shows."
Naru-san smiled. "While I appreciate the thought, my time as a youma is something I'd rather forget, and I don't want people to know about Okuni yet. Besides, I don't need the money. I can make diamonds, remember? Although, since I already have the money, I'll take my licence fees so I can buy more raw materials to make gemstones with."
"We should let Saeko-mama know about that," my dearest said. "Isn't she collecting diamonds as her retirement plan?"
"No," Ami replied, "mother expects to get a pension from the hospital. She collects diamonds because she likes them."
"Oh, good," Naru-san said. "Not that I want to ruin the resale market for diamonds and destroy someone's retirement savings, but somebody else might learn how to make inexpensive synthetic gems."
"Hey, wait, what was that about licence fees and Dreamland?" Bunny-chan changed the subject back. "Does Dreamland owe us money for those toku shows?"
I shook my head. "Artemis has been collecting those fees, along with the fees from Bandai for the licensed toys."
Upon hearing his name, Artie added, "And the money's waiting for you at the Crown, although some of it is tied up in the games themselves. Ryou and I have already invested his and Ami's fees, but we didn't have permission to do that with anybody else's money. And since Sailor Moon is the only character in all of the toku shows that they put on, you get more than anybody else. It isn't in the millions, but you could pay for a trip to Hawai'i for your entire family with your share."
"I could go to Hawai'i?!" Bunny-chan noticed the looks we were all giving her. "No, I'd better not spend it all on one thing. Could I get you and Ryou to invest it for me, maybe?"
Ryou replied, "You could, but you have to give me clear instructions before I'm allowed to. I can't do it if you say 'maybe'."
"Oh! Please invest my licence fees, Urawa-san." Bunny-chan said. "Except for an allowance that I can spend on treats at the Crown," she added quickly.
I smiled at the thought of Bunny-chan having a cake budget.
Artemis looked at Ryou for a moment – I assume they were having a telepathic conversation – then turned back to the ladies. "We'll work out how to get your money into the fund without hurting the Crown. We don't want to throw the Furuhatas out of work, after all."
Bunny-chan nodded. "Yeah, we should do that slowly if doing it fast would hurt Motoki-san and Unazuki-san."
"What about the rest of you?" Ryou asked everyone. "I'm already treating the portfolio like a mutual fund; we may as well open it up to everybody who's in on the Senshi's secrets."
"Toss half of my payments in, too," my fiancée said. "I need the other half for food and clothes for me and Minako, at least for now."
"Hey, wait!" Minako said. "I can live off my licence fees; I don't need charity."
Ami reached over and took Minako's hand. "I'm not going to let my new sister live on a pittance while I have millions of yen invested. It isn't charity, Minako, it's family."
"And I'm not going to let you starve, either. We're as close as sisters, even if that isn't official."
"Ami... Mako-chan... thank you so much." After a moment, Minako added, "Artemis, Ryou-san, do the same thing with my licence fees that you're doing with Mako-chan's. I'll accept help from my new family, but I won't freeload."
"You may as well add my licence fees, too," I told Artemis and Ryou. "I still need to pay Meioh-san back what she's given me since I arrived in this reality the first time, so every little bit that earns us all some money before that debt comes due helps everyone."
"We'll draw up the paperwork so it's all nice and legal. I'll have it ready after Luna talks with Mamoru-san. What about you, Rei?" Artemis asked.
"Donate it to the shrine," she said immediately. "Unlike my father, I prefer to live a simple life."
Artemis nodded. "I'll speak with your grandfather about that tomorrow."
Bunny-chan thought for a moment. "Getting back to December 5th, buying things as gifts for each other isn't really meaningful any more, is it?"
"Not really, no," Ryou replied. "Except for token gifts like souvenirs and Christmas exchanges. We'll just have to do things for each other that don't involve money, instead."
"Like cheer each other up when we're sad, and laugh together when we're happy? I know how to do that!"
I quietly stood up. "Don't mind me. I'm just going to stretch my legs for a moment and get some fresh air." I left behind the discussion about what would make for a good gift when you don't buy something, and took a quick walk outside. Seeing the crows on the torii, I took a chance. «I don't suppose either of you want to invest some money alongside the Sailor Senshi, do you?»
«Thank you for the offer, but we have nothing of our own to invest,» one of them sent back. I "heard" a slightly-raspy alto female voice.
«Ah. I was wondering whether you two were the Phobos and Deimos who I'd read about.»
«I'm Deimos,» the same voice said inside my head.
«And I'm Phobos.» The voice that I heard was slightly different from her companion's, but they were similar.
«And we're only telling you this because of what you told everybody the day after you got back from Gunma,» Deimos sent. «You no doubt already knew our secret.»
«Does Rei-san know?» I asked.
«No, and we'd prefer that it remain that way. You no doubt already know about Galaxia; we're hiding from her.»
«Right. I'll keep your existence secret for now, unless Rei-san specifically asks me.»
«Thank you,» they sent at the same time.
I woke up in the middle of the night, wondering just how it was that Phobos and Deimos knew Midchildan telepathy.
That kept me awake for a few hours, until I finally decided to blame it on the kami. As I went back to sleep, I hoped that I was right.
And then came exams, and then should have come the posting of the grades.
But that didn't happen until the report cards were handed out on December 24, because eight students needed to be re-tested under close supervision. If you need to ask who those eight students are, you don't know the stupid genre conventions.
Just before our first re-test, Ami asked us, "You showed off for my sake?"
My fiancée nodded. "Of course. We're as close as sisters, after all. Why wouldn't I keep you company on the leader board?"
"And why wouldn't I support my fiancée?"
"And you are my second-closest friend in two different realities, Ami. Of course I'll stand beside you if I can." I smiled before continuing, "Just don't ask me to be unfaithful to Makoto, okay?"
We all laughed at that.
Then Bunny-chan said, "I didn't show off; I just did my best. And our tutors really helped make my best something good."
"Oh, you've been getting tutoring?" Sakurada-sensei asked as she walked in with a small stack of tests. "That would explain everyone's improvement. Now, no more talking for the next 45 minutes," she finished while handing out our Japanese history tests.
Once we'd completed those, she gave us our math re-tests with the same instructions. Then we headed for the school gym and were re-tested in P.E. We ended up playing four-on-four Ultimate for twenty minutes – Ami, Ryou, Makoto, and I against Bunny-chan, Minako, Ichigo-san, and Naru-san – which Bunny-chan's team of course won despite our team using telepathy to coordinate our plays. I noticed that Bunny-chan threw the disk to Naru-san more often than she did to Ichigo-san or Makoto, which meant that Bunny-chan and Naru-san scored most of their team's points. The game was followed by individual tests of overall physical capability. I think they tried to wear us out by starting with Ultimate, but we surprised everybody, including ourselves, by barely working up a sweat. The TSAB GAS basic training for Ryou and me and the Protect Esthe training for the ladies definitely helped with our stamina.
Then it was lunch time. "It's just the eight of us and the teachers here today," Bunny-chan said. "Should we invite them to have lunch with us?"
"They're testing us today and tomorrow," Naru-chan pointed out. "Acting like we're friends with each other wouldn't be a good idea. Besides, who ever heard of teachers being friends with their students?" Before I could answer, she added, "Outside of an anime."
"Oh, more than one anime," I said. "Teacher characters being friends with their students was a big fad for a while. So, what did everybody bring for lunch? I have
pork katsudon and
inarizushi."
"Of course you have inarizushi, Robu-san," Ichigo-san replied. "Sometimes I think you're
part fox!"
I looked completely serious for a moment. "So, what would an inari/oni cross look like?" Everybody laughed at that question... except for Ami, who looked thoughtful but didn't say anything.
The Revealing Of The Lunches was followed by the eating of the lunches, as it usually was, and they were both accompanied by our usual discussions about nothing in particular.
This did not go unnoticed by our teachers.
Our re-tests after lunch were science and English.
The next morning, Sakurada-sensei was in the classroom before we arrived. Once we were all there, she said, "I don't know how you did it. I saw all of you, including Mizuno, chatting as if you didn't have a care in the world during lunch yesterday instead of studying, I know none of you cheated, and you all passed both of your afternoon tests. I can understand how everybody in the Conversational English club scored 100 in English, but what I didn't expect was that Tsukino scored higher on the English re-test than she did on the first English test!"
"I passed my English tests? How did I do that? I suck at English," Bunny-chan said. In English.
"You really shouldn't be using that sort of language when speaking to a teacher, Usagi-san," I pointed out. In Japanese.
Sakurada-sensei just sighed. "How do you know enough English to even
know that kind of language?"
"What about our morning tests, Sakurada-sensei?" Minako asked.
"Oh, you all passed all of them, too. Time for your Japanese language exams."
Naru-san got out a calligraphy brush and an
inkstone.
"Oh, now you're just showing off," Ichigo-san said with a grin. Then Sakurada-sensei gave her a copy of the test, and she got out a calligraphy brush and inkstone as well. The rest of us took the hint; this was going to be a relatively difficult exam, especially for those of us – like Makoto and me – who needed to work on our penmanship.
Somehow I managed to complete the exam without blotting my exam paper. I was confident in my facts; it was my penmanship that had me worried for this test. I couldn't help but notice that Ami was taking things in stride; apparently, she intended to avert the "doctors have poor penmanship" stupid genre convention.
The rest of our re-tests ensued, ending with a special Home Ec. test: make lunch for everyone, students and faculty, no menu provided.
As Ryou and I moved to take our places in the kitchen classroom, Sakurada-sensei said, "The two of you don't need to take this exam. Home Economics is a girls' course."
"We each live alone, sensei," Ryou replied. "We need to know these skills."
"Do as you wish, then." And she sat down in a corner of the room.
Minako started us off with a question. "Okay, what are we serving, and who's making what?"
"I'll make the rice!" Bunny-chan volunteered.
"You'll
wash the rice," my dearest said. "We have rice cookers. Rob, can you make that salad you made after we both donated blood to Shinozaki-san? That would go with almost anything."
"I don't see any mussels in the pantry, sorry. I can make a vegetarian version of that spinach salad, though."
"We have
nitsume," Ami announced. "Shall we serve fish with a nitsume glaze?"
Sakurada-sensei made a note of Ami's question.
"Nitsume on fish?" I asked. "I thought that only went on eel."
"It
usually goes on eel or shrimp," Ichigo-san replied, "but I've had it on grilled fish. And that was in Tokyo, not back home in Wakkanai."
"Let's do it, then," Minako said. "We also have apples. Ami, can you make that apple cake that everybody liked?"
"I'm sorry, Minako. It takes two hours to make. We only have one."
"In that case, I'll make Apple Charlotte."
Makoto summed up what we'd decided so far. "Fish with nitsume, spinach salad with chickpeas and broccoli, rice, and apple pudding. That's a sweet lunch."
Sakurada-sensei made another note.
"We have
yuzu," Naru-san announced.
"Perfect," I replied. "Juicing some of those for the salad dressing will provide a sour counterpoint to the sweet sauce on the fish. Naru-san, can you juice a half-dozen of the yuzu, please?"
"Sure."
Makoto nodded. "Okay, Rob and Naru-san are working on the salad. Minako's working on the sweet course. Usagi's washing the rice; help Ami and Ichigo when you're finished. Ami, get the nitsume ready. Ichigo, I assume the daughter of a fisherman knows how to debone fish."
"I do, but not because all of the men in my family are fishermen."
"Sorry, I shouldn't have made that assumption. Work with Ami on preparing the fish, please. Ryou, you're with me."
"Doing what?" he asked.
"I'll tell you when I come up with something," she answered while looking through the pantry. "Oh, we have cherry tomatoes! We're doing
yaki yasai."
"Salad
and grilled vegetables?" I asked.
"Serve one or the other, depending on which each person wants."
"I guess I don't need to juice this many yuzu, then," Naru-san commented; Makoto nodded in confirmation.
"Hot food is good on chilly days like the ones in December," Ryou pointed out. "May I suggest that we take turns doing everything? I suspect we'll get higher grades if we all show that we can do all of the kitchen tasks, not just the ones that we're good at."
Bunny-chan looked a bit upset at that, but was smart enough to say nothing.
Sakurada-sensei spoke up. "If you didn't decide to do that on your own, I would have told you to do it. We want to see as many of your skills as we can."
"Right," my fiancée agreed. "Everybody start with what I already said. Minako, how long do you need for the dessert?"
"A half hour," she said while peeling apples, "then it goes in the oven and I'm available to do something else."
"Rob, help Minako. Naru, keep juicing those yuzu, then help Minako and Rob. Then all three of you work on the salad. It doesn't take an entire hour to make a salad."
We got to work. As the puddings went into the oven, Minako thought to check the fridge, then announced, "Oops. We don't have custard."
"Whip some cream and use that to top the puddings instead," Ami suggested.
"Good idea!" Makoto said. "Ryou, take over grilling the vegetables; I have to make enough whipped cream to fill a piping bag."
Sakurada-sensei seemed to agree, since she was smiling as she made another note.
When it finally came time to serve, Bunny-chan started sliding fish onto plates. Then Makoto slid the fish onto slightly larger plates. "Appearance is important, Usagi."
"It is?"
"Yes, it is. Naru, I know you have steady hands; help me decorate the puddings while Rob and Ryou serve the entree to everyone. Everybody else, go eat."
"No Revealing Of The Lunches?" Bunny-chan asked.
"We made the lunches together," Minako pointed out. "We know exactly what's in them."
Once everyone had finished lunch, including the dessert, and we had washed and put away the dishes, we were told that we could go home... but not before Principal Takeuchi apologized to us. "It is obvious that none of you were cheating, and we should not have thought that you were," he said.
"Think nothing of it, sir," I replied. "We all received special tutoring over the last month; you would have been remiss if you did not double-check that we were only showing what we had learned in the process."
"I would be very interested in meeting your tutors, should they be interested in tutoring some of your classmates."
"I cannot answer for them, sir. However, I will relay your request."
"Of course. We will see you on December 24." As we turned to go, he added, "Oh, there is one more thing. Could I have
the recipe for that apple pudding?"
Minako grinned. "I'd be happy to share it with you, sir!"
And
then came the posting of the grades. For real, this time.
Before we got to the hallway with the posted grades, we saw a hand-written sign that read, "The top score on the second-year students' list is not a typographical error. Please stop pointing it out to the teachers."
Makoto and I looked at each other. "Do you think...?" I started.
"Let's find out," she replied.
It was almost as good as we thought. The first line read "Mizuno Ami: 899".
"Oh, Ami came so close..." I said, which got me a few odd looks from other students.
Ryou, Makoto, and I were all right behind her, with grades in the mid-to-high-800s. Then came everybody else in our grade, with Naru-san, Ichigo-san, and Minako each in the mid-700s. It took us a few minutes to find Bunny-chan, because she earned a mark higher than she'd ever earned before: "Tsukino Usagi: 639".
Speaking of Bunny-chan, she was looking at her mark with unalloyed glee. "Hi everybody! Look! Look! That's my personal best
ever!"
"Congratulations!"
"Where'd you two place?"
"Well," I said, "I don't want to boast, but..."
My fiancée cut me off. "The two of us and Ryou placed right behind Ami." Then she turned to me. "I don't mind boasting."
At this point, we noticed that there was a commotion outside the main gate. "We'd better check that out," Bunny-chan said, all thoughts of grades forgotten.
We slipped out as soon as we could switch back to our outdoor shoes, only to discover that the commotion was the result of somebody we recognized trying to get an interview with Ami. Yes, Asahina Nana was trying for an exclusive.
"Mizuno-san, how does it feel to get the highest grade in all of Japan?"
"I haven't seen my test results yet. I don't know what score I received."
Makoto and I held Bunny-chan back. "If you go running to Ami's defence," my fiancée told her quietly, "your photo will be in the papers right beside hers."
"I don't mind the publicity."
"With that unique hairdo of yours?" I pointed out. "Everybody will recognize you." I added mentally, «Both as Tsukino Usagi-san and as Sailor Moon.»
«Oh. Right.»
Just then, principal Takeuchi passed us on his way to the front gate. "Mizuno-san, please make your way to your classroom."
"Certainly, principal-san." Ami did as she was instructed.
"Whoever you are," he said to Asahina, "this is not the time or the place to interview one of our students. Please be on your way."
"Oh, all right. But see if I give you a good mention in my article!"
We quickly surrounded Ami, as an honour guard, and headed into the school.
"Look, it's Mizuno-san!" I think it was our classmate, Sakamoto-san, who said that, but almost everybody who had seen the posted grades applauded her.
After a moment, I sent to Bunny-chan, Ami, and Makoto, «I think you were right, my dearest. Ami certainly does have
kawaisa going for her when she blushes that deeply.» Which, of course, made her blush even deeper.
«Oh, you. I'd rather hear that from Ryou, though.»
«Which is why I sent it to just the four of us, instead of saying it so everybody could hear.»
«Thank you, Rob. Usagi, do you think your father's magazine would like an exclusive interview with the student who got what's probably the highest mark in Japan?»
«I think papa would love that! I'll ask him when I show mama my report card.»
«We're almost at our classroom,» I pointed out. «Now, unless you say no, I'm going to introduce you to the class when we walk in.»
I heard her mentally sigh at my comment. «I can't avoid that forever. You may as well.»
I nodded, then opened the classroom door. "Classmates, I present to you our class's very own celebrity, Mizuno Ami."
Everybody applauded as she walked in, still blushing.
It turned out that the 99 that Ami got was in P.E. There was a hand-written note beside the grade: "If you hadn't lost that disk game to Tsukino-san, you would have earned 100."
"I can't possibly show this to Usagi," Ami said quietly, as if she was afraid she'd be overheard.
When we got home after receiving our report cards, we discovered Makoto's grandfather, standing very still just past the doorway.
"Makoto. Explain what this is and how it is flying," he ordered, not taking his eyes off of Sakura... who had her sword drawn.
"
Aneki, who is this guy?" she asked. "He had a key."
"Grandfather, I am very sorry about this inconvenience to you.
She is a very dear friend of mine. Sakura, he's my grandfather and my legal guardian, so put your sword away."
Explanations ensued. It turned out that he had had suspicions that his granddaughter was Sailor Jupiter, which was why he had asked me the last question that he had back in Gunma. After my fiancée confirmed that suspicion, Makoto and I showed him our transformations, and then we proceeded to tell him about the two years we had spent in the Lyrical reality the day before we attended the commemoration ceremony. He asked a few questions that nobody else had asked, including just how close we were. Makoto chose to tell him that she and I had known each other, to use the Biblical euphemism, once she was sixteen, but refused to provide details.
At the end of it all, and after he'd read and approved of Makoto's report card, he told her that she had his permission to continue living in Tokyo. Unlike last December, he didn't put a time limit on that permission... but he did promise to return at the end of the school year.
Just after he left, Ryou called, inviting all of us to the Mizuno residence where sukiyaki was waiting for us. He added that Saeko-mama had reminded him to tell us to bring our report cards.
During the Christmas gift exchange the next day, Ami gave me a sketch of what she thought an inari/oni cross would look like. And the artistic quality of that sketch gave us a reason to ask about her father, who she'd inherited at least some artistic ability from. From what Ami told us that she remembered about him, he seemed to be a nice enough person... but I noticed that Saeko-mama's expression indicated otherwise. I decided that, since Saeko-mama wasn't outright disagreeing with her daughter, she'd tell us what she thought of her ex-husband if she wanted to, and left it at that.
Which is why all that I know about Ami's father is what Ami told me.
When it came time to play games, Shario-chan asked me to switch on my laptop – which I had brought with me at her request. "This is my Christmas gift to everybody," she said as she started a program that I hadn't installed.
As soon as we saw the startup screen, Bunny-chan said, "Oh, wow! You got the
Sailor V arcade game to run on Robu-san's computer!"
"Oh, I did better than that," Shario-chan replied as a near-photorealistic version of Sailor V walked out, shot the logo out of the way, and began a demo screen while
Route Venus started playing from the laptop's speaker. "Rob, I hope you don't mind me finishing your project."
"I don't mind at all," I said. "And you did more than just finish it. Thank you for improving something that I didn't have time to do myself."
"Everybody, here's how you play..." and she spent five minutes showing us the controls as Sailor V went up against a half-dozen different – and recognizable – youma, followed by a boss battle with Jadeite.
Bunny-chan practically begged Shario-chan, "Can I try? Please?"
"Sure, but run your right thumb across this bar first, like this," she said, demonstrating with the laptop's fingerprint scanner.
Bunny-chan did, and the player character morphed from Sailor V to Sailor Moon. "Oh, wow! That's cool!"
I hadn't realized that the biometrics that the Dark Kingdom had gathered on the Senshi were
that detailed. Or, more likely, Shario-chan and Meia got everybody's fingerprints while scanning us earlier.
We all took turns playing. Minako got the highest score, of course, but Ami came close to beating her. And all five of the Senshi, Naru-san, and I had custom game avatars that had our known powers. Ryou, Ichigo-san, and Saeko-mama had to play as the default Sailor V, the one with the pistol.
"Hey, that's not a youma or a Dark General," Bunny-chan commented while Ami was playing.
"You're right," I replied. "That's Wendi. Shario-chan, why did you program in our Midchildan friends as bosses?"
She grinned as she answered, "So you could spar against them again! Only Ami, Makoto, and you get Midchildan opponents." As we said that, Ami figured out on her own
how to get the Sailor Mercury avatar airborne so that she could fight Wendi in her own element.
"Let me guess; I get to go up against Nove?"
"And Deici; you need the practice if you're ever going to make Rank B. And Makoto gets to fight Cinque. If that's a problem, I can disable it if you want."
"Don't you dare!" my dearest insisted. "Now that I know that, I want a multiplayer mode!"
"Multiplayer video games?" Bunny-chan asked. "You mean taking turns?"
"I mean playing the same stages at the same time, with our characters side-by-side."
"I'll install the game on all of your laptops," Shario-chan promised. "Then you can net-play. But I'll warn you now: you, Ami, and Rob playing together unlocks Hayate as a boss."
I mock-groaned. "Awwwww, way to make the game unwinnable, Shario-chan." Then I grinned, chuckled, and winked at Hayate-chan to show that I wasn't serious.
When it was finally Naru-san's turn to play, I watched for a moment, then leaned over to Shario-chan and said, "Oh, nice touch on Okuni's dress." Unlike everyone else's clothing, her pattern remained in place relative to the screen when the character moved, showing a different part of the night sky with every step she took.
"Thank you! Now that this game is done, I have to figure out what to do next in my free time..."
Before I could make any suggestions, Naru-san flubbed a shot and the game ended. As she closed the game window, she noticed that an icon on my desktop was blinking. "What's that?"
"I don't know." Discovering that it was an MP4 file, I added, "But there's one easy way to find out." I double-clicked on it.
When the file started playing, we saw Future Ami, smiling. "Merry Christmas, everyone! I'm speaking to you from Crystal Tokyo to give you our best wishes for the year 1993. Younger me, please don't panic too much when your next opponents show up. Also, you have mail waiting for you at your Cranagan account."
"We were so busy that I forgot to set up that connection! Rob, I'm going to have to visit you tomorrow."
"Uh, yeah, of course," I said distractedly, because Future Makoto had walked by in the video's background and waved while pushing a cart holding a fancy decorated cake. If the smile she had on her face was genuine, Ryou wasn't the only person who was going to have a happy life with the Senshi who'd chosen him as a boyfriend. Assuming she was still with me a millennium from now, of course.
Future Ami either didn't see her or pretended she wasn't there. "Ami, we also have to sort out our opinions. I agree with you that Berthier needed to make her own choice. What will you do if there's someone who tries to make that choice for somebody else? Think long and hard about that, please. Naru, I have a hint for you: consider how to work with something that's smaller than you can see easily."
"Oh, of course!" Naru-san and Shario-chan said together.
"Usagi, you'll see her again, I promise." I think we all knew that "her" was Princess Lady. "And please don't get too upset with Ryou, Rob, and my mother; instead, remember the Animal Kingdom. Minako, Rei, don't stop reaching for the stars. Rob, please help the younger me and Meia work out some spells; the notes on what you'll need are in a file named 'Not a Hokago Tea Time song'."
"Not a... Oh, Ami, that's a terrible pun." Of course, nobody else in the room, including present-day Ami, knew the context to recognize it as a pun. I did not choose to enlighten them at the time.
"Ryou, don't get so caught up in making money for us that you forget why you're making money for us. Makoto, my sister in all but name and blood, don't be afraid to travel in order to learn. Oh, and don't forget that the contraceptive spell that Dr. Shamal cast on us both will only last another five months."
"I didn't know you had access to that kind of magic," Saeko-mama said to our Ami.
"Rob and I knew," Ryou replied.
"And I really should work out how to cast that myself," our Ami said. "Preferably some time in the next five months."
Future Ami had waited patiently for us to finish that digression. "There are some notes for you in the same file that I mentioned earlier. Ichigo, Ichiro, Sakura, Meia, and Hayate-chan, I don't have time to tell you anything special in this message, sorry. Finally and most importantly, I didn't say this often enough when I was growing up. I love you, mother, more than you can know."
Saeko-mama reached over and gave her daughter a hug. "I love you too, Ami."
"And now I have to go. Shario-chan, please don't waste time trying to break the time locks on these messages; the older and more experienced you created them. I trust you'll all have a Happy New Year, even considering what's going to happen partway through." And the video ended.
Nobody said anything for a short moment.
"Well, that was the most unique New Year's greeting I've ever received," Bunny-chan said.
"Usagi," Ami said with a bit of irritation, "'unique' means 'one of a kind'. You can't have something that more unique than something else."
"Sorry, Ami-sensei," Bunny-chan said quietly.
Oh, dear; it looked like she'd taken the wrong message from Ami's gentle correction. Time to distract her. I smiled as I asked, "So, Bunny-chan, do we get to live through 1992 a third time, or do we have to live in a new year this New Year's?"
"You're an oni, Robu-san."
I grinned. "So you told me, the day we met."
Everybody laughed... including the two of us.
Ami came over the next day – alone; Meia spent the afternoon with Ryou and Kasandara – after writing her New Year's cards. And I'll digress and describe the cards this time around. The Mizuno family's cards had a formal photo of Saeko-mama, Ami, and Minako, and the card that they sent to me went straight into my scrapbook. It was the first time I'd seen any of them wear kimono, let alone all of them, and as far as I knew it was the first formal photo of the Mizuno family since they had adopted Minako; that photo was worth preserving.
Makoto and I sent a shared card as well, with a photo of the two of us in pairs skating. We imposed on Kenji-san to take that shot of us as part of the price for his magazine getting an exclusive interview with Ami.
Ryou sent a card of his own, bearing hand-written wishes for prosperity in 1993. The Devices sent only a few cards, so they also sent hand-written wishes for good fortune in the new year. Ichiro wrote half of the Devices' cards, while Meia wrote the other half.
I used my 2022 cellphone to take photos of all of our cards – it was the next best thing to a flatbed scanner that I had at the time – and attached the images to emails to our friends in and near Cranagan. Physical mail delivery to Midchilda was still nonexistent, so we couldn't send them the proper way. As I finished writing a cover email apologizing for not contacting everyone sooner and letting them know that we'd successfully resolved what they would call the Dark Moon Incident, Ami opened a pinpoint Pandimensional Pathway and Shario-chan connected our wi-fi to Ginga's. Then it was a matter of a minute to upload our messages and download theirs... which was all that Ami had the stamina for.
We really needed to optimize that spell, so that the rest of us could take turns with the spellcasting. But that was a project for another day, and for Ami and Meia to do; all I could do there was advise the ladies.
Most of the mail from Midchilda was New Year's greetings. Shario sent us greeting on Hayate's behalf – a ship's captain could be excused from writing her own cards – while the others sent their own messages. Yuuno-san's e-card included a note about how his calculations showed our realities were likely to synchronize if we continued to open pathways between them, worded to suggest that this was a good thing. Nove thanked us again for the stock portfolio and let us know she was going to cash it out once she had enough to open that gym that I had suggested. Nobody else there had news that was as big as our news, although it was all interesting to us because they were our friends.
New Year's Eve came, as it does at the end of every year, and of course Makoto, Sakura, Ichiro, and I spent it with Saeko-mama, Ami, Meia, Ryou, Kasandara, and Minako at the Mizuno residence. Shario-chan and Hayate-chan planned to spend the evening together at my place, until Saeko-mama personally invited them both to join us as well.
With her inviting Makoto and me last year and inviting Shario-chan and Hayate-chan this year, Saeko-mama showed that she believed something that wouldn't start to be quoted widely for another decade: Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.
So of course Shario-chan and I brought the DVD and the projector, and, by using Ami's 2017 computer, we all watched
Lilo & Stitch.
While Saeko-mama and Hayate-chan were in the kitchen after we watched the movie, Ami showed us the card that she'd received from her father. Apparently, he sent her New Year's cards in this reality instead of the birthday cards he sent in canon. I could see where Ami got her artistic talent from. Unfortunately, the painting on the card – literally; it was an original, not a print – didn't give any clues as to his whereabouts, and there was no return address on the card, just a postmark from Uwajima.
"You know, we're rich enough to hire somebody to look for him," Makoto commented.
"What description would we give of my father, though? I get my looks from my mother; all I can say for sure is that he has the same colour eyes as me."
"And that he's Japanese," I added. "Sometimes I think that there are more blue-eyed Japanese people in the Sailor Senshi than there are in the rest of the Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou student body."
"I'm not going to look for him. If he wanted to see me, he'd let me know his address. And the cards come from different cities each year."
Before my fiancée could respond, I said, "You know your own will here, Ami. And I think you're right, although he obviously wants to stay a part of your life. If he didn't, he wouldn't send you cards every year."
"I still think we should look for him," Makoto said just before Saeko-mama walked into the room with a tray of food.
"May I help you with that?" Ryou asked before anyone else could volunteer.
"Thank you," she smiled as she passed the tray to him.
We enjoyed a simple dinner, more because of the company than the food. Like her daughter, and like me, Saeko-mama was a decent cook, not a gourmet chef.
But fine dining wasn't the point to New Year's Eve, not in Japan. Family was the point.
Makoto, Ami, Ryou, and I decided to take a trip during the second half of the new year's break.
After Kasandara confirmed that she and Ryou could go into Life Support Mode, that is.
Yes, we planned to go off-world. The ephemeris that Chacornac gave us when the Kisenian Flowers tried to invade Earth included updated orbits for five of the senshi's castles along with a note that the others were not detectable at the time the ephemeris was produced.
We already knew that Moon Castle was in ruins, so we suspected that the others that Chacornac couldn't detect – Magellan Castle, Phobos Deimos Castle, Miranda Castle, and Triton Castle – were also destroyed. But we would have to go look to be sure; it was possible that they were occluded by their planets.
Chacornac detected magitech in orbit around the other planets that we hoped were the castles. With Life Support Mode on, we wouldn't die if we teleported into a vacuum, so we could go look for ourselves. Mind you, Life Support Mode wouldn't help us if, for example, Sailor Saturn had left lethal defences switched on at Titan Castle before the Silver Millennium fell. And we didn't want to trespass on Setsuna's prerogative by visiting Charon Castle without her along, and she was busy at Atelier Lucent.
That left us with three possible destinations for our first trip: Mariner Castle, Dawn Castle, and Io Castle. Dawn Castle was immediately dismissed for our first trip because it was a complete unknown; there was no canon that I was aware of where Sailor Ceres was stated to have a castle. Best to set that destination aside until we had some experience with interplanetary travel. We voted on whether to visit Mariner or Io first, with predictable results. Shario-chan cast the tie-breaker: Mercury was roughly a quarter of the distance from Earth that Jupiter was at this point in all three planets' orbits.
"How long is it going to take us to get there?" I asked. "It takes us six minutes to get from the Earth to the Moon, which would indicate a two-day travel time to Mercury if it's the same average speed. But it took Ichiro and me almost five seconds to reach the Kármán line. Although Ichiro and I didn't accelerate by flying when we went to the Kármán line."
"I thought you were better at math than that, darling. Acceleration accumulates over time. This isn't rocket science."
Ami smiled. "Actually, Makoto, this is rocket science. Rob, I've fine-tuned the spell so that I can set the acceleration to whatever I want. I don't know what accelerating very fast would do to our bodies even in Life Support Mode, though, and I'm worried that Kasandara and Ryou can't handle the same acceleration that the rest of us can."
"Ah. Would two hours each way work?" I asked.
Ami thought for a moment, then nodded. "That's probably within Kasandara's tolerances. I hope."
"Eleven times of twelve," she confirmed.
"Then we're taking a day trip, just like last New Year's," Makoto said.
"I'll pack some sandwiches," Ami replied with a smile.
And we were off bright and early the next morning, after letting Saeko-mama know where we were going. Emphasis on "bright"; there's a lot of sunlight near Mercury.
The first thing we did when arriving in orbit around Mercury was shield our eyes. Then Meia did a Wide Area Search, finding Mariner Castle rather quickly. If we had depended on just looking for it, we would never have seen the structure; its invisibility cloak was better than mine.
We found an airlock, Ami opened it with her identification code that was listed in the Mercury Computer, and we went inside... to find just as thin a vacuum inside the castle as what was outside. We had lights and artificial gravity, but no air.
«I'm guessing there were no survivors of Beryl's war,» I sent. «If there were, they would have repaired the damage.»
«Or escaped, if they didn't know how to make repairs,» Ryou replied.
«It would be nice if that was the case,» Meia commented.
As we looked around, Ami became more sure of where she was going. Within an hour, she led us to the castle's dock – which was empty. «It looks like they escaped,» she sent with some relief. «Come on, this way.»
We didn't trust the elevators; we took the stairs to the command deck... where we found a body seated at one control panel in the main operations room. It... no, she hadn't decayed, instead mummifying in the vacuum. Ami recognized her.
«She was the flight director here,» Ami told us. «She probably stayed behind to make sure everybody else could launch. Her name... I think it was... Ninlil?»
«The Sumerian goddess of healing,» I sent, without knowing how I knew that. «She wasn't forgotten. Don't touch her,» I added as my fiancée almost did just that.
Makoto moved her hand away from Ninlil's body and pointed at the console that Ninlil had been facing for millennia. «I wasn't going to. What's this light, here?» It was the only blue light on the console; everything else that was lit was red.
Ami took a closer look at the console. «That's... it's... » She finally consulted the Mercury Computer. «The princess' private ship is still in my... her private dock.»
«If it's still functional, can we use it?» Ryou asked.
«I don't know how to pilot a Silver Millennium spacecraft,» Ami said.
«Sailor Pluto might know how,» Makoto suggested.
«Or Sailor Uranus, once she awakens,» I added. «In canon, she seemed to know how to operate any vehicle somebody showed her.»
«Before we make a list of who might be able to operate the craft,» Ichiro sent, «we should find out whether it's still operational.»
«In a moment,» Ami replied. «I haven't finished scanning this room yet.»
We waited until she had a full scan of the main operations room. «Yuuno-san would love exploring this place,» Ami sent to us as she finished recording everything.
Then we headed off to Princess Mercury's private dock... to find a blank card propped against the airlock controls.
«Any ideas why this is here?» Ryou asked.
«I suspect that it was a temporary sign of some sort, but the ink or paint has boiled off into the vacuum over the millennia,» suggested Meia.
«We have to move it to get at the controls,» I pointed out. Ami nodded, so I picked up the card and placed it on the floor. She opened the airlock, and we went inside, closing the door behind us.
After a few seconds, we heard a hissing noise. «Sounds like there's atmosphere on the other side of the lock,» Makoto pointed out.
«But is it breathable?» Ryou asked.
As the door in front of us opened, Ami used the Mercury Computer to scan the air. Then Meia dropped out of Unison with her and said, "It's breathable. It is somewhat thin, though, only two-thirds of the usual air pressure in Tokyo."
"
About the same as the air pressure at the peak of Mount Fuji, then," my fiancée said. "As long as we take it easy, we'll be fine."
"Ichiro and I will stay in Unison," I said. "Just in case somebody needs to exert himself."
We took a look around. The ship's interior, as much as we had time to explore, looked to be very comfortable; it was pretty obviously a yacht, not a working ship. For the first time in at least ten millennia, the ship's mess was used for its intended purpose as we finally had a chance to eat the lunch that Ami had packed. Then we carefully cleaned up after ourselves and went back to exploring. We discovered why the ship hadn't been launched when we finally got to the flight deck or cockpit or bridge, whatever the Silver Millennium called the control room; the shutters over the dock were twisted and warped.
"That looks like it was done by high-energy magic," Sakura said.
«I concur,» Ichiro replied as Ami scanned the controls.
"Sit down, everyone," she said as she took what I assumed was the pilot's seat. She pushed a button and a video screen lowered, blocking the view from the front windows. It showed some text that none of us could read. Ami physically connected the Mercury Computer to the pilot's control panel, typed in a command and waited. A half-minute later, the text of the ship's screen switched to Japanese. "I thought that would work," she said with some satisfaction.
The captain's final log entry said that the crew was abandoning the ship in dock since there was no way to repair the dock's launch doors before the atmosphere bled out of the station. He apologized to Mercury for leaving his post without orders.
"You're forgiven," Ami said quietly.
The ship was operating on station power. The air pressure was low because there was no reserve in the air tanks; the ship strongly recommended visiting a planet with breathable atmosphere in order to replenish the air supply. Of course, that wasn't going to happen without some major repairs to the station, fuel for the ship, and a pilot.
Ami downloaded the ship's log to the Mercury Computer. "While you're doing that," Shario-chan asked, "could you grab the engineering reports too, please? We might be able to get the ship running again, assuming we can refuel it."
"Her," I corrected Shario-chan. "In this reality, ships are traditionally female when speaking English. What kind of fuel does she take?"
Shario-chan studied the display for a moment. "I'll have to double-check in the power room and thruster room, but I think she uses hydrogen, both as a fusion power source and as reaction mass."
"Reaction mass?"
"It's a backup system to the reactionless drive, if I'm reading this display correctly." She pointed at another console that I hadn't examined yet.
"How are the ship's communications systems?" I asked. "Can we connect to the Chacornac station?"
Shario-chan looked at the controls for a long moment, then replied, "We'll have to go back to Chacornac and take it out of restricted access mode first."
"Can we do that today?" Sakura asked. "You never know when we'll need access to the systems here."
"Or the databanks," Ami added. "But, no, we're running out of time. We need to leave soon if we're going to be home in time for a late dinner."
"But we'll come back," Ryou said as everyone but Ichiro and I went back into Life Support Mode. The two of us, of course, had never left it.
"Is that precognition?" Shario-chan asked.
"No, it's a promise."
I made sure to pick up a couple of copies of Kenji-san's magazine that week, because it was the issue with Ami's exclusive interview. I didn't recognize the name of the stringer that he had brought in to conduct the interview, but whoever this Minkao Jinguuji was, they were good at interviewing people like Ami. I learned a few things about my second-closest friend that I hadn't learned directly from her over the past three years.
Oh, sure, I could have learned whatever I wanted to know about her from looking through her brainprint, but I'd made that mistake with my fiancée's brainprint once already. Just because I had a copy of all of her memories didn't mean I should, or was forced to, read them, after all.
The holiday wasn't all work, though. Makoto and I went skating together three times during the two-week break. During our second outing, after we had visited Mariner Castle, I brought one of my F90 cameras with my general-purpose lens, three rolls of 36-exposure film, and the camera bag with the model release forms... at Ryou's suggestion.
I found out why when a girl who I
almost recognized skated up to us as we were taking to the ice. "Mako-chan!"
"Chieri-chan! I haven't seen you since August."
That's where I remembered seeing her; she was in the group of people who had lost loved ones in the JAL 123 crash.
"I'm so happy that you've kept skating," Chieri-san said. "Who's your partner?"
"Not just my partner, my fiancé!"
"Really?! You're so lucky!"
"Hello," I said. "I'm Rob Donaldson; please call me Rob, since you're one of Makoto's friends. I'm happy to meet you, miss."
"Hello, Robu-san. I'm Asuka Chieri. Call me Chieri; anybody who can catch Mako-chan's heart
and skate as well as you is a friend of mine."
I smiled in reply. "She caught my heart, too. Have you ever skated with Makoto, Chieri-san?"
"Oh, I'm not that good. I couldn't possibly..."
Before she could finish, Makoto took Chieri by the hand. "You are that good. Darling, go relax for a few minutes."
"I have a better idea. You two warm up while I get my camera."
"Oh, yes, please!"
I think I've mentioned before that the rink's staff like Makoto and me. When I came back with my camera, they asked everyone else to clear the rink so that I could get some photos of the two ladies safely. Aside from a half-dozen posed photos which all came out well, I managed to get a few dozen good shots of the two of them skating, including a shot of both of them doing an axel at the same time, followed by some good shots of just Chieri-san skating.
My fiancée was right: Chieri-san was as good as she was. Maybe not in technical matters, but I could see the passion she had for the sport in every move she made.
Once I ran out of film, we all took a break and let everybody else get in some skating while I got both Makoto and Chieri-san to fill out and sign model release forms. "Thank you, ladies," I said when they returned the forms to me. "This will let me offer the photos for publication. You do want to be in a general-interest magazine, don't you, Chieri-san?"
"I would
love that! Oh, but Mako-chan, you don't like publicity..."
"I don't mind being known as a skater; it's being known as just a crash survivor that I hate. And you want to go professional. How could I refuse to help you be better known?"
"Thank you so much. You're a good friend, even if we don't see each other very often. I actually came to this rink because I heard rumours about the Emerald Pair and I hoped that the tall girl was you; I'm glad I was right."
"You could send each other letters, you know," I said.
"But I don't know Mako-chan's address! She moved!"
"That's easily solved." I grabbed one of my blank release forms, copied both ladies' addresses onto the back of it, tore it in half neatly, and gave each skater's address to the other. "Now you do."
"I'll write to you as soon as I'm home, Mako-chan!" Chieri-san promised.
"And I'll send you copies of the photos tomorrow," I promised in return.
"Remind me to be extra-nice to you tonight, darling."
"Sorry, my dearest, but tonight I'm developing these photos so I can keep my promise to Chieri-san."
"Tomorrow night, then," she said with a grin.
I spent that evening at the Tsukino residence, using Kenji-san's darkroom in exchange for giving him first publication rights for a half-dozen of the photos... including the photo of the paired axel. He told me that he'd have to get Minkao Jinguuji-san back in to interview Chieri-san, for a story to go along with the photos.
We had fun skating, Rei-san and Ichigo-san spent a day skiing, and Minako and Bunny-chan made a day of watching
Otoko wa Tsurai yo: Torajirō no Seishun in the theatre.
Oh, yes: According to Ichigo-san, Rei-san scored 777 on her end-of-term exams.
While we were having fun, Ami, Meia, Shario-chan, and Setsuna-san of all people were working. At Chacornac crater. They used the spare parts that past-Setsuna-san could spare from the supplies at the Door of Space-Time, plus a few components that Shario-chan and Naru-san had made together, to get the space-facing sensors up to 83% operational, the Earth-facing sensors up to 27% operational, and the communications gear up to a full 100% operational.
If we wanted anything better from the Earth-facing sensors, we were going to have to put a satellite cluster in orbit. Which meant figuring out how to deploy and pilot Princess Mercury's yacht. It also meant building some satellites, and even our combined fortunes couldn't bankroll that. Yet.
Full communications meant that the Senshi could now use their communicators to stay in touch practically anywhere in the Solar System. And, as long as I could contact the communications node connected to my router, I could reach them, too. Of course, that meant Ami and Shario-chan had to go back to Mariner Castle and tie the royal shuttle into the communications network, so that Chacornac could use its sensors... which they did the following day. Chacornac immediately started compiling a list of repairs needed by both the yacht and Mariner Castle.
Shario-chan put "build a telepathic transceiver to connect Midchildan telepathy to the Senshi comms" near the top of her to-do list. Not at the very top, since she had no idea how to do that with Bishojo technology, but she assumed there was something in the Infinity Library that could help. It was just a matter of putting the email in the "to send" queue for when Ami next connected our reality to the Lyrical reality, then waiting who-knew-how-long for Yuuno-san to reply.
Back to what we could do, we now had a much better chance of detecting anybody – and by "anybody" I mean "Galaxia" – attempting to enter the Solar System through normal space, the way Fiore had. Hyperspatial portals were still blocked by the Door to Space-Time being closed, and it was Sailor Pluto's job to keep them blocked. Although I suspected that this meant that a sufficiently-motivated invader – yes, Galaxia – could just take a hyperspace route to Alpha Centauri and spend a half decade at near lightspeed to get here. Which meant that she was already on her way, and that meant there was nobody with a Star Seed left in the rest of the galaxy, other than Princess Kakyuu and the Starlights. Who were also on their way here.
When I discussed those thoughts with Hayate-chan, she couldn't find any logical errors with them.
On a lighter note, because at that point I would take whatever good news I could find, apparently Naru-san had fun creating fiber-optic cables for Chacornac. I didn't know that clear glass counted as a gemstone... and I wasn't about to ask her, in case she suddenly realized that she couldn't do this very useful thing that she was doing. Or maybe I just misunderstood the extent of her powers.
Naru-san also picked up a new power before Sakura trained her in knife throwing; one that we should have realized she could learn. The first thing that Sakura taught Naru-san was Midchildan telepathy.
Her showing that off during the first Revealing Of The Lunches in 1993 was a surprise to the rest of us. Well, except for Ichigo-san, who couldn’t hear her.
On January 4, we realized that there was something we hadn't shared with everybody else yet: The experience of flight.
Minako decided that she didn't want to try that again. Which was understandable.
Ami took Naru-san for a flight over Hamarikyu Gardens, leaving Meia to keep Ryou company, and from all accounts Naru-san enjoyed herself immensely. At the same time, Makoto and I gave Rei-san and Yuuichirou-san a quick tour of Roppongi from 200 feet up. Or, at least, a quick tour of part of Roppongi; we had to make an early landing when Sakura needed to go into Life Support Mode because Rei-san was holding on for dear life and my fiancée couldn't breathe.
Makoto managed to squeak out, "Easy, Rei. I've got you."
"You... you've got me? Who's got you?"
Oh, great, she's panicking. "Rei has gone bye-bye, Yuuichirou-san. What've you got left?"
"I won't complete that quote for you, Robu-san. Not while Rei needs help."
"Good. You're keeping your head in a crisis. Let's all get her and you back on the ground. I think, right now, she needs you more than she needs us."
"Are you sure it's me that she wants to be with right now, though?"
"She did invite you to take part in a family-only event before Small Lady left. I'm willing to take a chance that she would rather talk with you than with me."
The big oaf's got a goofy smile.
We set down in an alleyway beside Tony Roma's and pried Rei-san off of Makoto. Even in order to help Rei-san calm down, Makoto refused to visit that restaurant again... so we went to the Hard Rock Cafe nearby for a quick non-alcoholic drink and a shared plate of cheese and tomato flatbread instead.
"That was embarrassing," Rei-san whispered. "I've seen you do that a few times, but I still went to pieces when it was my turn."
"Flying isn't for everybody, I'll admit," I replied. "Don't worry about being human."
"Do you think you want to try again?" Makoto asked.
Rei-san thought for a moment. "I don't know. Not now. And not unless I'm transformed."
So we walked back to the shrine instead of flying there. Makoto and I walked hand-in-hand; Rei-san and Yuuichirou-san didn't, but at least they walked closely enough beside each other that they could.
Then it was Bunny-chan's turn. And Shingo-kun and Ikuko-san's. We took it nice and easy. Ami told me afterwards that Ikuko-san seemed to enjoy the trip, and I could hear Shingo-kun's cries of delight while being carried by Makoto.
Yes, she carried him while I carried his sister. Bunny-chan insisted. Because she wanted to have a private talk with me.
"Robu-san, can I learn the spell to open a gateway between worlds?"
I smiled at Bunny-chan's question. "Of course you can! But you'll need to learn some advanced math in order to be able to use it."
"How advanced?" she asked with some trepidation. "I'm no good at math."
"Well, you'll have to start with matrix algebra, differential calculus, and non-Euclidean geometry."
"Ano... Robu-san, these are university courses."
"I know that, Bunny-chan," I replied. "Once you understand them, then you'll have the grounding to be able to cast the spell, and you might be able to Unison with Hayate-chan without overwhelming her, too."
"Mako-chan didn't need to learn all that math, did she?"
"Sakura's doing all of Makoto's spellcasting, except for her Senshi attacks."
"I'm going to have to learn math..." The poor girl cried almost as hard as she had when Kunzite kidnapped Tuxedo Kamen. But not for anywhere near as long.
The day before we went back to school, I noticed that there was a website that I hadn't visited listed in my browser history. I dialed up the internet and looked at it, then did a search for its owner. Then, after checking my email, I logged out and turned to one of my companions.
"Shario-chan...?"
"Yes, Rob?"
"Why is the domain name 'sailorsenshi.org' showing up as owned by 'Finieno, S.' in a whois search?"
"Because I bought it. I can't believe we didn't already have a website, Rob."
"It's 1993!
Nobody has a personal website yet!"
"Oh, good; we get to be the first."
And then it was time for third semester. The big news on the grapevine was of a mysterious transfer student, followed by Shiratori Mikan-san's release from the hospital; almost nobody was talking about Ami's interview.
Which made me wonder, because as far as I knew, all of the mysterious transfer students who should be involved with the Senshi were already students at Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou. Unless Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune transferred in from Mugen Academy, but the odds of that happening were somewhat less than the odds of me figuring out in the next ten minutes who was responsible for me being in this universe to begin with.
Not that I was complaining about being Makoto's fiancée. But I was still curious about why.
The mysterious transfer student was the topic of discussion after the Revealing Of The Lunches that day. "What's that?" Bunny-chan asked while pointing her chopsticks at Ichigo-san's side dish.
"It's
matsumaezuke! Squid, herring roe, and konbu, pickled together. We usually eat it in Hokkaido around New Year's; this is the last of mom's supply for this year. It takes a week to ferment."
"Ferment? That sounds terrible," Minako said.
"Fermenting is important when making pickles," my fiancée replied.
"It tastes great," Ichigo-san insisted. "Want to try it?"
"I'll give it a try!" And Bunny-chan helped herself to a bite. "Oh, that's salty! But good!"
"Salty? I'd better not," I said. "Somebody as tall as me has high blood pressure at the best of times."
The rest of us found excuses to let Ichigo-san eat her own lunch while we ate our own.
Then we started talking about the transfer student – sorry, the
mysterious transfer student – in class 3.
"I heard she's from Russia," Bunny-chan said.
"I think she is, considering her name is Elmira Bogdanova," Minako replied.
Ichigo-san dropped her chopsticks in surprise.
"Do you know her?" I asked in just as much surprise. "You mentioned that you used to visit Korsakov occasionally."
"No, I've never heard of her," she said while packing the rest of her lunch and picking up her now-dirty chopsticks. "But I know what her name means."
"Is that important?" Ami asked.
"It might be. 'Elmira Bogdanova'; electrification of the world, given by God. That sounds a lot like Sailor Jupiter to me."
"Most people's names aren't meaningful that way, Ms. Strawberry Greenhill," I pointed out, using the English translation of her name for emphasis.
"The Senshi's names are." Ichigo-san replied in Japanese.
Makoto frowned. "But it isn't that close to my name."
"It's as close as one can get without involving Roman gods," Ami pointed out.
Naru-san asked, "Should we keep an eye on her?"
"Perhaps we could become friends with her, instead," Bunny-chan suggested. "She probably needs a friend or two."
My fiancée nodded. "I know what it's like to be alone in a new school."
"So do I," Ryou added.
"Likewise," said Ichigo-san.
"Me, too," Minako said.
"That's half of our group," I said. "And I suspect I would've known as well, if I hadn't met Makoto the day I arrived here. So if she is lonely, we're probably the best people at Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou to help her."
"So, how do we approach her?"
"That's easy, Usagi-san," Ichigo-san answered. "Let Ryou-san walk past her and she'll do her best to spend time with him."
"Oh, come on, I'm not some sort of male ideal. Am I?"
I blinked in surprise. "Haven't you noticed, Ryou ol' pal?"
"I have to admit," Minako said, "that when Ami was thinking of going to Germany to study, I was tempted to take you away from her. I wouldn't do that now – we're sisters ever since Saeko-mama adopted me – but the fact that it's Ami and not me who's your girlfriend is the only point where I'm jealous of her."
"I remember you saying that at the time," Ami commented. "I thought you were joking."
"Ami-chan... Mina-chan..." Bunny-chan looked worried.
Time for an intervention that only a foreigner who wasn't completely familiar with local customs could pull off. But lacking one of those, I'd have to do. "It looks like we're going to have to be honest with each other here. Raise a hand if you
haven't wondered what it would be like to be Ryou's girlfriend." I raised my own hand, as of course did Ryou. So did Makoto. The other five ladies, including Bunny-chan, didn't. "Face facts, Ryou; you're a babe magnet."
"We need a point of comparison," he insisted. "Raise a hand if you haven't wondered what it would be like to be Rob's girlfriend." Ryou, Ami, Naru-san, Bunny-chan, Ichigo-san, and I immediately raised our hands.
"Minako?" I asked as Makoto moved closer to me.
"I wondered when we first met, but only until you told me that you had a girlfriend. But I did wonder, and you said to be honest. Don't worry, Mako-chan, I'm not going to make a move on your fiancé; I fully support your love for each other, just like I support Ami and Ryou's."
"Can we come up with a different idea on how to approach Bogdanova-san, please?" Ami asked.
"We really should," Bunny-chan agreed. "It isn't fair to you or Ryou to ask you to do that."
«Oh, good,» I sent to Ryou, Ami, and Makoto in English. «We've got at least two shippers cheering for our love.»
«What does maritime transport of freight have to do with our relationships?» Ami asked. «No, wait, I see it now; relation
ships. When will that term catch on?»
I thought for a moment as I ate. «In 1996, I think. Fans of
The X-Files come up with it.»
My fiancée asked, «What's
The X-Files?»
Before any of us met Bogdanova-san, though, we had other things to do. Mostly related to schoolwork, but not all.
One matter fell into my lap. Literally.
"Oops! Sorry about that, Rob."
"No worries, Hayate-chan," I said as I helped her up. "You're usually more attentive to your surroundings than that; is there something wrong?"
She hopped off of my hand and onto my desk. "No. Not really. It's nothing. ... Yes."
"Is it anything that I can help with?"
She sighed. "I don't think so, Rob. You aren't in charge of the group."
"Oh, dear. Are you having personality issues with one of the Senshi, or Naru-san, or Ichigo-san?"
"No, no, not at all. But sometimes..." I waited, and let her continue at her own pace. "Sometimes everybody else forgets that I'm here. Everybody's busy with schoolwork, either learning or tutoring, except for Kasandara and me. Meia and Ami are busy with their spells and combining the old Silver Millennium technology we've found with Midchildan technology, you're helping them with the first part of that, and Shario-chan is helping with the rest. Even Naru-san helps out with that project. Ryou and Kasandara are busy earning us enough money to buy a nice house somewhere and fund all of our other projects. Usagi and Rei are miko when they're not students or Senshi. When Minako isn't trying out for movie or TV roles, she's figuring out what it means to be in the Mizuno family instead of the Aino family. You and Makoto are the Emerald Pair, and everybody likes seeing you skate together. Even Ichigo-san has her zoology studies. Usagi and Mamoru are finally a couple, Ami and Ryou love each other and have their parents' blessing to marry, and you and Makoto have the second-strongest relationship I've ever seen; only the one that Nanoha and Fate have is stronger. And Sakura keeps complaining about how much time Ichiro and Shario-chan spend together at Naru's place when they all visit to give her training."
"I wasn't aware that Ichiro and Shario-chan were getting that close, although I had my suspicions. But we're not talking about them. We're talking about you."
She nodded. "But all I have to talk about is everybody else. Ever since Princess Lady left, I haven't had anything to do, except wonder why Hayate agreed to let me come into existence. She can't have been expecting me to adjust to being the same size as Reinforce with the same magical capacity as Makoto after remembering having been full human size and the most powerful mage in all of the worlds that the TSAB knew about."
"I know from your skating lessons that Unison Devices can at least take on a child-size form."
"You're right, we can, but it isn't any good in combat."
"We aren't in combat right now."
"Oh. Right." She hopped off my desk and grew larger, until she was about the same size as Princess Lady. "That helps a lot. Thanks for reminding me that I can do this," she said as she pulled my guest chair over and sat down.
"Happy to help. How do you do that, by the way?"
"Most of a Device's body is in a pocket dimension, for want of a better name. We just let our other forms come out to play, something like changing clothes. That's how Raising Heart and Bardiche can change from being a wearable size to being polearms."
"And how you and our Unison partners can become larger. I learn something new every day. But that's only one of your problems. You mentioned having less magical power that you're used to, and having nothing to do. I can't help you with the magical power; I'm only Rank C."
"And I don't know what you can do to help with my other problem. Usagi's in charge of the Senshi, Rei is her lieutenant, and Ami's their trusted advisor."
"Ami is
one of their trusted advisors. I'll admit that Rei-san and I aren't as close to each other as the others are to either of us, but I do have Bunny-chan's ear whenever I want it. I just don't want it very often. But the Senshi don't have very much to do right now, and probably won't until the Death Busters make themselves known unless somebody like Touhi-chan shows up unexpectedly."
"Why don't we take that battle to the enemy? We know that Germatoid is Professor Tomoe, and his secretary and the prefects of Mugen Academy are the Death Busters."
"And Bunny-chan needs to power-up by getting the Holy Grail in order to fight them, and that requires bringing the Talismans together."
"We know where the Talismans are."
I nodded. "All of this assumes that this reality is the same as any of the canonical
Sailor Moon realities, of course. But this reality changed as soon as I arrived in it during the Missing..." I had a horrible thought.
"Rob? Is something wrong?"
"Give me a minute. I'm working out the timeline. How old was Hotaru when her father implanted Mistress 9 into her? That was only alluded to in a flashback scene in the anime."
"You're thinking of the manga continuity. In the anime, Mistress 9 revived and merged with Hotaru after she was killed. And she was, maybe, ten at the time?"
"Oh, dear. That means they were on Earth during the Missing Time, while the Dark Kingdom was still in existence. I wonder whether they were affected by Usagi-san's reset of the world?"
Hayate-chan thought for a moment, then asked, "How powerful is Pharoah 90?"
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
Finally, I said, "Well, there's something for you to do, Hayate-chan: go through every scrap of information we have about the
Sailor Moon S anime and the Infinity arc of the manga, and develop strategies to deal with our opponents with minimum loss of life."
"By 'minimum loss of life', do you mean on our side or on both sides?"
"Both sides. The body count in this reality is already higher than the body count in the anime continuity; I'd really like to stop killing everybody we don't like. And you're the best strategist on the team... Oh! I just thought of something else that only you can do. Sakura wasn't wrong when she said that Bunny-chan has the tactical skill of a rock."
"But she's the Moon Princess. She doesn't need to know tactics, she needs to know... strategy," she finished with a smile. "I see where you're going with this."
I nodded. "You are the only one here who can teach her military strategy, after all. It isn't covered in the TSAB manuals that your personality donor gave us."
"Because you asked for the basic training manuals, not the officer academy manuals." Hayate-chan sighed deeply. "You realize that you're asking me to teach the person in our team who has the most trouble learning in an educational setting. I don't know whether I'm
that bored. But you're right; she needs to learn what I can teach her. Has she agreed to learn strategy?"
"I haven't asked her yet. Maybe you should consider that your first lesson: get her to accept that she needs to learn what you have to teach."
Finally, on the first Thursday after the winter break, we met Bogdanova-san. Ami and I were walking to class 1, where the lunch club was meeting that day, when we saw somebody we didn't recognize standing just outside the door to class 3. She had black hair, longer than Ichigo-san's but shorter than Makoto's, skin that was a paler white than mine, and eyes so dark they looked to be black. She was taller than most of the other students, but not as tall as Makoto or me. And she was carrying a Lawson's bag instead of a bento. "Excuse me," she asked with a Russian accent, "but could you direct me to the cafeteria?"
"Oh, we don't have a separate cafeteria, only a lunch counter," Ami replied. "We eat lunch in our classrooms, or in the classrooms of our friends, or outside when it's warm enough."
"I see. Thank you, miss...?"
"I'm Mizuno Ami. Pleased to meet you." Ami bowed slightly.
"You are the girl that the magazines call the smartest student in Japan? I'm honoured to meet you. My name is Elmira Bogdanova."
"And my name is Rob Donaldson," I said with a bow of my own. "I'm happy to meet you."
"I have heard about you as well, Donaldson-san. Or is it Mr. Donaldson? My classmates tell me you are not to be dated, but they do not say why."
"Since we are in Japan, I go by Donaldson-san, although many of my classmates can only manage 'Donarudoson-san'," I added with a bit of a smile. "I hesitate to ask how badly your classmates pronounce 'Bogdanova-san'."
"Not as badly as they pronounce your name; they call me 'Bogudanoba-san'."
I continued, "As to why I cannot be dated, that is because I already have a fiancée."
She looked from me to Ami, then back to me. "Mizuno-san?"
"No," I replied, "Ami is my second-closest friend, not my fiancée."
Ami added, "And I am affianced to someone else. Would you like to meet our fiancées, and have lunch with us and some of our other friends?"
"Yes, please," Bogdanova-san replied.
So we did. Of course, Bunny-chan coaxed "Erumaira-san" to be on a given-name basis with everyone else in our lunch club before our bento were empty.
She seemed a bit shy, but that was understandable; she was meeting eight people at the same time, after all. And she was busy paying attention to us rather than talking very much; we never had to repeat anything.
When we walked back to our classrooms after lunch, Elmira-san asked whether she could join us again. In reply, we let her know our schedule of when we ate in which classroom and gave her an open invitation to join us whenever she wanted.
Elmira-san ended up being the topic of conversation at the first Conversational English club meeting of the new term. Not because she was there – she didn't seem to speak English – but because she had joined us for lunch again.
"We have to get that poor girl a proper bento," my dearest said. "She can't keep buying lunches every day."
"Ichigo-san did mention that buying lunch is the Russian way," Ryou pointed out. "She probably isn't used to making a lunch at breakfast time."
"Er..." Minako started. "Is it just me, or does she seem a bit odd to anybody else?"
"You know you left yourself wide open there, Minako," I said with a grin.
"We love you anyway," Ami added, "even if you are a bit odd."
Minako reached into her school bag, pulled out a small throw pillow, and threw it at Ami... who caught it easily. "But seriously, something about Elmira-san seems odd to me."
"She
is Russian," I pointed out. "We're used to people who act the way Japanese people act."
"And how British people act, in my case," Minako agreed. "And you're probably still used to how Canadians act, too."
"Canadians and Midchildans both," I agreed.
"But that isn't what's bugging me."
"Then what is it about our new friend that has you bothered?" Makoto asked.
"I don't know. Something."
"Well, when you figure out what's bothering you, you can let us know."
We got together at Rei-san's shrine on Sunday. For the first time, Ryou, Ichiro, and I were invited to join the girls in their Protect Esthe training. Little did Ryou and I know that they had an ulterior motive.
I nearly had a nosebleed as soon as we walked in. Ryou did have one. Because each of the girls, including Sakura and Meia, was wearing an
ESPA sleeveless leotard.
"You two just flunked the first test," Ichiro said. "Your opponents tend to be attractive women. If you can't keep your minds off people's appearances, how do you expect to be able to fight them effectively?"
"There's a big difference between seeing An or Berthier or I assume Mimete in clothes that tend to flatter their figures, and seeing my fiancée and the rest of the Sailor Team in spandex leotards," I pointed out.
"Ecchi," Rei-san commented with a frown.
"If you don't like his attitude," Sakura said, "then do something about it, the way we discussed."
"Fine, I will!" She transformed to Sailor Mars. At least now she was wearing a skirt over her bodysuit. "Form Blazing Sword!"
Okay, that was new. Well, at least it was new for her. I don't know what was burning – maybe it was just her passion – but the short sword she was holding was made completely from flames. If that hit me, it would hurt.
"Frigid Sword!"
"Crescent Beam Saber!"
My fiancée, in Sailor Jupiter form, simply formed her electro-quarterstaff.
And Naru-san grabbed a charred log and turned it into a diamond sword. And the fact that there was a charred log in the building to begin with showed me that I had been set up.
"Your second test starts now," Ichiro announced. "It isn't enough just to survive; you have to disarm all five of your opponents."
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I said as I formed a forcefield bubble around myself and dodged Jupiter's electro-quarterstaff. "Do I have to protect Ryou, Ichigo-san, and Bunny-chan at the same time?"
Ryou groaned. "Don't give him ideas."
"We'll see about doing that next week."
"See?"
At this point, Okuni and the
Senshi of the Four Guardian Deities had me surrounded, and I had manifested a forcefield staff of my own. Time to divide and conquer, starting with the three who hadn't been trained by Ginga and Vita. I feinted toward Mercury, then spun while using my staff to knock Okuni's, Jupiter's, and Venus' feet out from under them while I rushed Mars.
She swung at me wildly. Obviously, she was at the point in her training that Naru-san was at just before Petz sent my closest friends and me to Midchilda; she could create the sword, but she didn't know how to use it yet.
"Too slow, Mars," I said while grabbing and squeezing her wrist, forcing her to drop her Blazing Sword – which disappeared before hitting the wooden floor.
"Mars! Out!" Meia said.
"Let go and I'll walk away," Mars said.
"Sorry, but I need you for a moment." Then, while dodging swings of Mercury's Frigid Blade at chest height and Okuni's diamond blade at knee height, I pushed Mars straight at the opponent who had returned to her feet: Venus.
As I hoped, Minako let her Crescent Beam Saber dissolve so she could use both hands to catch Mars.
"Venus! Out!" Meia said as Jupiter got to her feet.
I looked at Naru-san. Sure enough, she wasn't expecting the training to be life-threatening, so she hadn't transformed to her dress or kabuki makeup. Although after seeing how I had used Mars to defeat Venus, she decided to do just that. This was the first time that I'd seen she finally had control over her transformation.
I grabbed her in a forcefield and held her off the floor, forcing Jupiter to stop a swing that she was about to take at me.
"Hey! Using somebody as a shield isn't very heroic," Okuni complained.
"Just helping you get up," I replied as I let her stand on her own feet... between me and Mercury. I poked at Jupiter's electro-quarterstaff with my own staff, failing to make contact.
Okuni spun on her heel to face me... at which point I worked with her momentum and used a forcefield mallet to knock the sword from her hand, making sure it didn't hit Jupiter as it was sent in her direction.
"Okuni! Out!" said Meia.
And with the three people who hadn't been trained by Ginga and Vita now out of the fight, I felt a lot more comfortable with sparring at my full power; which I'd need in a two-on-one fight. Mind you, the downside to that was that I was up against two other TSAB-trained fighters who didn't have to worry any more about hitting their less-trained allies.
As Rei-san, Minako, and Naru-san walked over to where Ryou, Ichigo-san, and Bunny-chan were standing, I dodged the electro-quarterstaff and the Frigid Sword at the same time, used Mirage Hide to change my clothes to TSAB armoured training fatigues, looked at Jupiter and Mercury, and said with a grin, "Let's get dangerous!"
"Agreed. Frigid Dagger!"
"Coconut Cyclone!"
I succumbed to a bit of showboating and spun my quarterstaff to knock the missiles out of the air, relying on my TSAB armour to absorb the one ball of electricity that got through, then started moving. If I stayed in one place while fighting either Mercury or Jupiter, I just might be able to win, but leaving myself as a sitting duck while fighting them both was suicide.
At least we were indoors, which I thought meant Mercury wasn't able to take to the air. Silly me.
The I realized that Meia, not Ichiro, was refereeing this fight. It was a slim chance that my thought was right, but worth a try. I used my quarterstaff to poke Mercury in the stomach, pushing her back to the wall so that I could bypass her and reach my partner. "Unison!"
He nodded in approval. "Unison!" And I let Jupiter get in a free shot, taking down my forcefield bubble, while I powered up.
We dissolved my quarterstaff and formed twin forcefield swords, Ichiro's preferred weaponry.
As Jupiter swung her electro-quarterstaff in one hand and drew Donguri-no-ken with the other, I made as if to feint toward Mercury... then rushed Mercury after all, trapping her Frigid Sword between both of my swords. Then I shifted all three swords in an arc, forcing her to twist her wrist.
Except that she didn't twist her wrist. Instead, she levitated, spun her entire body to match how I was trying to twist her arm, and kicked me in the stomach, forcing me to let go of her sword. At least the armoured fatigues kept me from taking any real damage. "Shiny Aqua Illusion!"
I barely had time to raise a forcefield shield – sloped so I wouldn't be trapped by the ice.
As Mercury righted herself, Jupiter said, "Sakura! Unison!"
"Unison!"
«She'll kill me if we damage Donguri-no-ken,» I thought to Ichiro as I stood up.
«We'll have to seal it, then.»
«Easier thought than done,» I told him as Jupiter's Unison completed. Then I turned my full attention to my opponents. "Shouldn't you two be breaking morale and running by now, after most of your allies have fallen around you?"
"You're the one who told me Esmeraude thought I was the most dangerous Senshi," my dearest said with a smile. "Supreme Thunder!"
I dodged away from the now-electrified Donguri-no-ken and blocked it with both of my own swords. "Now, Ichiro!"
«Sealing!» And we had my fiancée's sword.
"Meia?" I asked, wondering why she hadn't called Jupiter "out" yet.
Then Makoto hit me hard with her electro-quarterstaff. "You aren't the only one with two weapons."
As I lost consciousness, I heard Meia say, "Oni! Out! Mission failed."
When I regained consciousness, I saw Ami casting a healing spell on my head. "Easy, Rob. Meia says that you're concussed. Let us get you back in shape."
"Thanks," I muttered. Note to self: include a helmet in my sparring outfit. "Ichiro, give Donguri-no-ken back to Makoto, please."
"Already done, sir."
My wits returned to me as Ami's spell took effect. "Looks like I failed the second test, too."
"We were surprised that you lasted as long as you did," Ichiro replied while dropping out of Unison. "But, yes, you failed."
"And I'm upset that you took three of us out in less than a minute," Rei-san groused.
Quietly, I said, "That wasn't your fault. The three of you have been learning TSAB techniques, but the three of us have had intensive training from an experienced TSAB trainer. Vita is a much dirtier fighter than Ichiro ever will be. I took you out first so you wouldn't get hurt in the crossfire when we got dangerous."
Bunny-chan nodded. "That makes sense. And I didn't realize just how dangerous you and Ami can be in a fight."
My dearest laughed. "That was barely a sparring session, except at the end. And I'm sorry I knocked you out, darling, but somebody had to take you down a peg."
Under doctor Meia's orders, I didn't take part in the rest of the session. I spent the rest of the morning lying quietly... or, considering Rei-san's Blazing Sword, lion quietly.
Hey, at the time and with the lingering effects of my just-healed concussion, I thought it was funny.
Needless to say, I didn't go skating that afternoon. My dearest told me that I missed skating with Chieri-san and meeting her skating partner.
And my fiancée and I
never sparred against each other after that; we were always placed on the same team.
Ami and Elmira-san started a chess game during lunch the next day. Nothing serious; the games that they played starting that week were each completed during the same lunch period that they were started. As a result, neither woman got to show off her true skills, whatever Elmira-san's chess skills might be; they ended up winning about half the games each.
And thus was our routine set for the final term. Teal Deer, we did well on tests, became closer to Elmira-san, and talked about trivial matters during the Conversational English Club. Tutoring and combat training progressed to the point that Rei-san could actually use her Blazing Sword as a weapon... and we got to experience sauna when the Blazing Sword went up against the Frigid Blade.
And when we weren't training and Makoto and I weren't skating as the Emerald Pair, Meia, Ami, and I decoded Future Ami's notes – at least the ones we had access to – and came up with a spell that the notes assured us would put Pure Hearts, Dream Mirrors, and Star Seeds back into people's bodies. We also re-created the contraceptive spell that Dr. Shamal had cast on Ami and Makoto – it turned out to be a basic Midchildan medical spell that Hayate had picked up along the way, so Hayate-chan taught them the spell and the ladies improved it so that the recipient could switch it off early if she wanted to become pregnant. Needless to say, that upgrade went into the e-mailbag for our Midchildan friends.
Then we worked on a mind shield spell, starting with all the notes that Yuuno-san was able to send us. While Wiseguy was gone, barring timey-wimey shenanigans, we didn't want Nehellenia to incapacitate us with dreams or nightmares. By the time that we had to drop our research in order to concentrate on final exams, everybody else who was able to cast spells could defend against Hayate-chan's mental attacks, no matter how direct or insidious they were. Including the "lotus eater" illusion that the original Book of Darkness had used against a much younger Captain Testarossa in Lyrical canon.
We hoped that that would be enough.
And then it was time to study, followed by the exams.
The Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou faculty didn't take any chances this time; there were video cameras on Ami, Ryou, Makoto, and me for every exam. And copies of the footage of us taking the tests and verbally answering extra questions after each test were submitted along with our test scores.
And that's the only reason why we didn't need to be re-tested again.
Usagi improved slightly; she scored 640 instead of last term's 639.
Naru-san, Ichigo-san, and Minako scored in the high-700s, improving as well.
Ryou, Makoto, and I scored 881, 873, and 877, respectively. Normally, that would be newsworthy. Normally, Ami wouldn't be attending the same school as three other students who all scored above 850.
Ami, like Usagi, improved by one point. Mind you, that was as far as she
could improve; it gave her the first 900 that I'd ever seen
anybody earn, anywhere. Little did I know at the time that it wouldn't be the last.
Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou hosted a press conference just after the awarding of the report cards. I remember being surprised that Elmira-san stayed to listen.
And this time, since everybody was in on the secret, we invited Makoto's grandfather to the celebratory sukiyaki party.
Ryou gave Ichigo-san an end-of-year gift: a printed copy of the peer-reviewed literature available online in 2018 about Wakkanai's harbour seals.
We didn't see her for the entire three-week end-of-year vacation.
Which, apparently, Ryou did on purpose. We had to explain to the others who couldn't initiate Unison that making an interplanetary trip might be fatal to them; with something important to her to read instead, Ichigo-san didn't even ask to join us.
And thus did we make our first long-term repair trip to Castle Mariner. We were there for a week, bringing along everything that we needed including tanks of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and carbon dioxide. By the end of the week, all of us except Ami were sick of sandwiches and bottled water.
Ami and I got better at casting movement spells, since we used them so often. Even with the extra atmosphere cylinders, we couldn't get the air pressure in the shuttle high enough for the biological people to do very much physical work safely; we were all accustomed to sea-level air pressure, not mountaintop air pressure. Shario-chan ended up becoming the work boss, since she was the only one of us who had a technical background and the ability to work in the thin air.
We couldn't repair everything, not in one week. But we got the royal shuttle functional and the doors to its dock operational; now all we needed was a pilot. And fuel, but the Sun gave off more hydrogen than we could capture easily so filling the ship's fuel tanks was just a matter of time.
Ami and Shario-chan spent the entire last day we were there taking scans of various ship's systems throughout the shuttle, as requested by Yuuno-san after he finished studying the scans Ami had taken of the station the first time we visited.
Then we told the station to refill its sole intact hydrogen fuel tank from the solar wind, and headed home.
While we were gone, Naru-san made some more replacement parts for us to install at Chacornac. She was getting good at miniaturizing them; she was almost at the point where she could start making spare parts for the laptops. And while she wasn't doing that, she and Chiba-san practised their swordplay.
Rei-san gave Bunny-chan some lessons that we didn't realize she needed: Usagi-san was a much calmer miko when we returned than she was when we left. The newfound serenity suited Serenity, and I hoped that she'd be able to draw upon it as Sailor Moon as well.
Apparently, Minako, Saeko-mama, and Superintendent-General Sakurada spent an afternoon together. Apparently, two of those people asked a favour from the other person. Apparently, I don't need to be present for stupid genre conventions to take place.
Anyway.
The stupid genre convention made itself known the first day of our third year at Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou. Makoto and Ichigo-san were no longer in Class 6, and Ami and I were no longer in Class 5. The entire lunch club, all nine of us, were in Class 1.
And so were a lot of other people who hadn't been in Class 1 last year. Sakamoto-san had come along with us from Class 5, for example. As a result, we managed to grab a group of desks together at the back of the room, nearest the door, because nobody had a prior claim to them.
I got the prized – well, I thought it was a prize – desk right beside the door. My fiancée was beside me, and Ichigo-san was beside her.
Minako was directly in front of me. Bunny-chan got the desk in the middle of our cluster, and Naru-san was beside her.
Ryou was directly in front of Minako, and Ami was beside him (and in front of Bunny-chan), with Elmira-san beside Ami.
Sakurada-sensei was our homeroom teacher. She walked in, saw that we were all together at desks convenient to the door, sighed, and started her start-of-year speech. "Some of you already know me, while others are meeting me for the first time. I'm Sakurada Haruna." She wrote her name on the blackboard. "I'll be your English teacher as well, and I'm also the faculty advisor to the school's Conversational English Club. Now I'll call on you to introduce yourselves, starting with student 1, Ito-san."
I had previously made a grid on a sheet of paper, and filled it in with my classmates' names as they introduced themselves; one of the perks of being in the back corner of the classroom was that I could do so without anybody noticing and taking offence that I couldn't remember their name.
Most of the introductions were the instantly-forgettable sort. A few weren't.
"I'm Aoyama Ichigo, and I'm an Ainu." You finally decided to tell everybody, eh? More power to you, Ichigo-san.
"I'm Matsudaira Hanzō. Yes, I'm named after Hattori Hanzou. And I am that good with a sword." You might think so, Matsudaira-san, but the way you move, it's obvious to the TSAB-trained people in the room that Minako, Makoto, and I are better armed-martial artists than you are.
"I'm Tsukino Usagi, 15 years old, clumsy and a bit of a crybaby." Bunny-chan, why did you just use your anime character's introductory speech?
"I am Sakamoto Kazuya." That's all, ol' classmate? But, then, I've never known you to say much; I barely know you as a person. No, I haven't been keeping my classmates at arm's length ever since Sato-san died; Sakamoto-san has always been somewhere in the background.
"I'm Mizuno Minako. I was born Aino Minako, and I still use that name when I try out for TV show roles." Keep on reaching for the stars, Minako.
"I'm Mizuno Ami. I can't help everybody in class with your homework all of the time, but my friends and I can help if you really can't figure something out at all." I nodded in agreement, as did Ryou and Makoto. And, while I wondered where the wallflower who I had fallen in like with had gone in the last half-decade, I appreciated being close friends with the self-confident young woman who could make such an offer unbidden.
"I'm Ueno Daisuke, and I'm so happy to be in a class with so many pretty classmates and a pretty teacher." Oh, dude, you just put yourself on the 'don't bother to date' list.
"I'm Osaka Naru. My family runs a jewellery store, and I've made a few pieces myself." She showed off the ring that she was wearing.
"I am Elmira Bogdanova. Please be patient with me; I am still learning Japanese."
Finally, it was my turn, Our names weren't spelled with kanji, so unconscious Japanese racism meant Elmira-san and I got to go last... and D comes after B. "I'm Rob Donaldson. You can probably tell that I'm not from around here. I'm used to people mispronouncing my name, so I won't think you're being overly familiar if you call me 'Robu-san' instead of trying to say Donaldson. Like Kino-san, I like ice skating."
"You and Kino-san are the Emerald Pair, aren't you?" one of our classmates asked.
We nodded in unison. "Yes, Yamaguchi-san, we are," I replied.
"Autographs after school tomorrow," Makoto added with a grin.
The other teachers took their turns introducing themselves to us as their classes began, followed by giving us tests that were designed to show how much we already knew about their subjects. To nobody's surprise, Ami got straight 100s on these tests.
Our final class for the day was English, which meant Sakurada-sensei was back in the classroom. "I'd like to give you a quick English test now. I want to know who here needs more help than the others, and who can help me teach tricky phrases." She passed out exams, face-down, then walked back to the front of the room and said, "Begin."
I turned my test over to see that it had a note attached: "Stay behind after class." I suspected that I wasn't the only one to get that note.
A half-hour later, Sakurada-sensei said, "Pencils down. Hand in your tests, and then you may leave for your first club meetings of the year. Be sure to be here on time tomorrow."
It took a few minutes for everybody else to leave. Sure enough, Sakurada-sensei had told the eight of us who had been a group for more than a term to stay behind.
She waited for a moment to make sure nobody else was loitering by the classroom, told Elmira-san to not bother waiting, then closed and locked the doors. "What the Hell is going on here?"
"Ma'am?" Minako asked, her face the picture of innocence.
"Don't 'ma'am' me, Mizuno Minako. My sister practically ordered me to make sure the eight of you were in the same class. I want to know why."
«Is there any point in trying to keep it from her any more?» Ami sent.
«She's trustworthy, seven times out of nine,» Ryou replied.
«We may as well tell her, then,» Bunny-chan decided.
"I'm waiting for somebody to answer me."
"It might be better to show you, ma'am," I said. Then I waved one hand and the drapes closed as if by magic. Well, they really closed because I used forcefields to pull them closed. I also put up a privacy forcefield along the classroom’s interior walls, floor, and ceiling.
She turned to see the drapes closing apparently on their own. "How...?" Then she turned back to us... but instead of seeing Bunny-chan, Ami, Minako, Makoto, Naru-san, and me, she saw Sailor Moon, Sailor Mercury, Sailor Venus, Saior Jupiter, Okuni, and Oni.
"They don't usually transform on-campus, sensei," Ryou said. "This is a very special day. Oh, and I'm known as Onmyōji. I don't go out and fight, which is why I don't have a costume."
"You're... This answers a lot of questions, actually. How long has Natsuna known?"
Venus took that one. "About all of us, since Bon last year. About me, since a couple of months after I became Sailor V."
"Who?"
"That's the name I used during most of the Missing Time."
"We should transform back before somebody else notices us," Moon declared as she shifted back to Bunny-chan. We each followed suit, making sure Sakurada-sensei could see us switch and thus knew who was who.
"I think I need to sit down," Sakurada-sensei said while doing just that. "What about you, Aoyama?"
Ichigo-san grinned. "Oh, I'm just an ordinary girl who happens to know my friends' biggest secret. Just like you now, sensei."
"I haven't been a girl for a half-decade now, Aoyama." She thought for a moment. "I suppose you've been using the Conversational English club as a place to talk about your other lives."
Ami nodded. "We have, yes."
"I'll do what I can to discourage new members from joining this year."
The club members bowed in appreciation. "Thank you, sensei."
"And now I know why you wanted desks near the back door. If you have to leave early or arrive late, you'll cause the least amount of disruption possible,"
"Actually, sensei," I said, "I'm just used to sitting near the back so that I don't block my classmates' view."
"Me, too," Makoto added.
"Yes, of course. That's considerate of you."
"Thank you, sensei," my fiancée replied.
"And the rest of us just sat with the people we know," Ichigo-san finished.
School quickly settled into a month-long routine of learning, deciding which if any high school we wanted to try for, Conversational English club meetings on Fridays – with no new club members – and our unofficial lunch club meeting either in Class 1 or in the courtyard. We all ended up talking about our hometowns during lunch. Thus it was that the group learned more than we would probably ever need to know about Niigata from Ryou, Vladivostok from Elmira-san, Wakkanai from Ichigo-san, and Toronto from me.
But that was April. May changed things up for us, and not just with two holidays in the first week of the month. Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou had its school trip in early May.
Sakurada-sensei gave us the usual talk ahead of time: the trip to Kyoto was part of our studies, this was a school activity and we were expected to conduct ourselves appropriately, and we were expected to take notes. Then she told us to form groups of six people.
Elmira-san ended up not joining us. Bunny-chan quickly drew her closest advisors at school – Ami, Minako, and Makoto – into her group, along with Naru-san and Ichigo-san, which meant there wasn't room for a seventh girl in her group. And of course she couldn't join a boys' group.
Ryou and I were approached by more than a few of the boys in our class who couldn't get dates; it seemed like they thought we were going to be spending our free time with our fiancées, so they might have a chance at dating our other friends. But Ueno-san was one of only two who was honest enough to actually say so. So of course we let him join our group,
because he was honest with us. The other honest classmate was Sakamoto-san, who was still hoping to spend some time with Minako, and we took pity on him. Hey, he was a classmate of mine from last year, so why not? Ueno-san suggested Yamaguchi-san, and after we chatted with him and discovered he had no ulterior motive for joining our group, we decided, "Sure, why not?" We rounded out our group with Matsudaira-san, of all people, who we asked to join us because he said flat-out that he wasn't interested in dating any of his classmates or covering for anyone else in his group if they tried... which meant that none of the other groups would have him.
We talked about the class trip during the Conversational English club's meeting that Friday, instead of packing for a week-long trip.
"Why are school trips always to Kyoto?" I asked.
"They aren't always to Kyoto," Ryou replied. "Rei-san mentioned that her class is going to Hiroshima next month."
"Which means they're going to be
folding origami cranes for a while," Minako replied.
Ami smiled as she said, "Kyoto is a city filled with history. We should learn a lot next week."
Makoto added, "And most of the hotels downtown are cheap."
"Inexpensive!" insisted Minako and Ami.
"Right, inexpensive. I wonder where students from Kyoto go on their school trips."
Minako grinned. "Probably Tokyo. Maybe they see the sights from Tokyo Tower and get overwhelmed by how much they aren't going to see during their trips."
I looked at Makoto and sent, «Or maybe they get sent to another world and end up becoming Magic Knights.»
We both started laughing.
Unusually, we weren't making our trip from Sunday to Saturday; instead, we were going from Monday to Sunday. We found out once we were in Kyoto that this was because the Saturday that we would be there was
Aoi Matsuri and we were being given the opportunity to see the festival before we returned home. Apparently, this was a special gift to the school with the student who scored 900 on her exams, as was our trip being made on the shinkansen instead of the slower local trains that would have taken all day to make the trip each way.
We packed on Sunday, and decided who was going to come along. The ladies had it easy; all of their Devices accompanied them because everybody in their group was in on the secret. Ryou and I finally decided to risk bringing Kasandara and Ichiro along, but Shario-chan and Hayate-chan had to stay home. Kasandara fit neatly into Ryou's jacket pocket; Ichiro had to hide in my camera bag.
Then it was Monday. Our two groups arrived early enough that we still had our pick of
ekiben at Tokyo Station. Once everyone else arrived, we were on our way. Needless to say, we creatively adjusted the seating arrangements by pointing out that we were the top students in the school; Makoto and I were beside each other, as were Ami and Ryou. I brought one of my F90 cameras along, but cheated and used my 2022 cellphone to get a video of Fuji-san as we passed it. I pulled a good still from that video once we were back home.
We timed our meals so that we'd finish just before arriving at Kyoto, thus having an early lunch. We loaded our bags onto the buses that were waiting for us, then headed across the tracks to
Kyoto Tower since our hotel wasn't ready to receive us yet. This was our first exposure to the distinctive Kyoto dialect; Ami had no trouble with it, and was willing to act as an interpreter for the rest of us.
"Great view," I said while taking photos of Kyoto... and of Makoto.
"I can't help but think this is the second time we've visited a city and gone straight to the observation tower," Ami commented, slipping one arm around Ryou's waist.
We didn't loiter; there were still hundreds of our schoolmates who wanted to get a look out the windows. Finally we'd all had a turn, and we got on the buses, which finally took us to our hotel.
We divided up into three large groups of two classes each. We all saw all of the sights that we expected to see, just not all at the same time. We were the lucky group who got to visit Higashiyama on Tuesday, while we were still well-rested; it took us all day to see the sights of eastern Kyoto, including the famous stage at
Kiyomizu-dera.
"Do you remember the phrase 'jump off the stage at Kiyomizu'?" Naru-san asked while we were standing on the stage.
"It's said that if you were to do so and survive, your wish would be granted," Ueno-san replied.
"That's a 13 metre drop," I pointed out. "People have survived falls from that height, but rarely without injury."
«Ami, don't you dare!» Makoto sent. «You can fly. Rob and I can fly with help. Everyone else would just fall, and I'm sure you don't want to be responsible for people being hurt while trying to copy you.»
«Oh, I wouldn't think of it,» Ami sent back. «Besides, jumping off the stage has been prohibited since Meiji 5.»
«When?»
«1872, Usagi.» We could all sense the background sigh in Ami's thought.
While we were in that temple complex, we visited
Jishu Jinja Shrine. All of us, save for Matsudaira-san who couldn’t be bothered, tried making the walk between the Koiuranai-no-ishi with our eyes closed. Of course, some of us had already found our true loves, so our love fortunes were a foregone conclusion.
All right, we still had to make the 10-meter walk between the two stones with our eyes closed. Ami and Ryou went first, walking hand-in-hand, never deviating from the correct path... which I assume was easy for a precog and somebody who was used to travelling in three dimensions. Makoto and I went next, and we both used our experience in three-dimensional movement to make the two-dimensional trip successfully; being able to make the walk together without help made my fiancée happy. And Bunny-chan made the walk successfully with her eyes closed, too, which she took as proof that she and Chiba-san were meant to be together.
The others... didn't do so well. Ichigo-san wasn't too proud to ask for help, even though that meant – assuming the legends were true – that she wouldn't find true love without a go-between... but, as she mentioned afterwards, "I always expected to meet my future husband at an
omiai anyway. And, yes, I know Ainu have tended to be avoided at omiai." I had the feeling her comment was a decade out-of-date, but she knew her own life better that I did. Nobody else managed to make the trip successfully.
And of course I got a photo of Bunny-chan standing beside the statues of the
Hare of Inaba and
Okuninushi-no-mikoto.
We spent the afternoon walking the
Philosopher's Path – seven shrines starting with the
Silver Pavilion and ending with
Nanzen-ji. Yamaguchi-san, Ueno-san, Sakamoto-san, Naru-san, and Ichigo-san all showed signs of fatigue by the time we were finished. I, on the other hand, bought some fried tofu from one of the many places near Nanzen-ji that sold it.
"I should have known you'd get some tofu to snack on," my fiancée commented.
"Want some?"
"No, I'll wait for dinner. I have to watch my figure."
"I thought it was my job to watch your figure," I said in English, with a smile that she quickly shared.
Speaking of dinner, we were in Kyoto two months too early in the year to try
hamo. Ah, well, we couldn't have everything. We did, however, get to try
warabi... which turned out to be what in Canada we called
fiddleheads. I never expected to find a taste of my old home in Kyoto.
We went north on Wednesday, and saw many other famous shrines, including
the Golden Pavilion,
Kitano Tenmangū, and
Ryōan-ji. I know we stopped at other shrines and that I took photos at all of them, but I barely remember them now.
Unlike the Silver Pavilion, which was plain wood, the Golden Pavilion was actually gilded. Yamaguchi-san said in awe, "I doubt anyone here has seen that much gold before." Somehow, Ami, Makoto, Ryou, and I kept straight faces as we didn't reply. The other Sailors – other than Rei-san, who wasn't along for our trip – had never seen the gold that we brought back from Midchilda. The building itself reminded me of the Silver Pavilion, which was unfair since the Golden Pavilion was designed first. The garden, though, was beautifully maintained and perfectly in harmony with both the temple and its surroundings; I took more photos of just the garden than I did of the garden and Makoto or the garden and any of the other ladies.
Of course we had to stop at Kitano Tenmangū. After all, we were students, and the temple is dedicated to Sugawara no Michizane. Thanks to the sweets café that Makoto and Ichigo-san's class ran during last year's cultural festival, we knew enough to bring okoshi with us. And the priests wondered just why the nationally-famous student scholar Mizuno Ami needed to pray for success in her exams.
"It's because I don't know everything," she replied. "I ask that the god of learning guide my studies so that I might become a better student and a better person."
The fact that the girl who was known across the country to have honestly achieved a grade of 900 thought that she needed to become a better student amazed many of the other students at the shrine... including Bunny-chan, alas. Sometimes I despaired for Crystal Tokyo, but only sometimes, since it didn’t take me long to remember that Neo-Queen Serenity had some capable and trusted advisors to call upon.
Ryōan-ji was our last stop of the day. It was so different from the other temples that our teachers wanted us to remember it. The mortal remains of no fewer than seven Emperors were entombed there, but it was the gardens that were the most impressive part of the complex.
"What's with the stones?" Bunny-chan asked – quietly – while looking at the Zen garden from the temple's veranda. "I thought there were supposed to be plants in gardens."
"This is a special kind of garden, Usagi," Ami answered.
Matsudaira-san added, "You must look at what is not here, in order to learn."
"Look at what isn't here? I don't get it."
"No, I suppose you wouldn't," he commented with some disdain.
He had a point and I was impressed that he knew it. However, he could have expressed it better; there was no need to disrupt the harmony of the group. Ami, Makoto, Ryou, and I couldn't explain it to Bunny-chan without revealing secrets to Matsudaira-san, Sakamoto-san, Yamaguchi-san, and Ueno-san; Van Tonder, Lyons, and Yoshimichi wouldn't publish their analysis of the garden until 2002.
We left Matsudaira-san to contemplate what wasn't there, and looked at the water garden and the tea garden. The water garden was
a living pond, not a cleared and sterile reflecting pool, which I appreciated. Cleansing ourselves at the tea garden was more difficult for my fiancée and me than it was for the others, because of the famous
Ryōan-ji tsukubai that we had to bend over in humility to use. I had trouble reading the kanji written on the top of the
tsukubai until Ami told me that the square water basin was part of each kanji, at which point I could read the koan without knowing how I knew how to read it: "I only know what I deserve." It took me a moment to realize that it was a reminder to be content with what one has.
Bunny-chan never figured out the kanji. I sent a thought to the passenger in my camera bag: «Ichiro, our princess needs tutoring in how to read and write kanji. So do I, but she needs it more than I do.»
«I'll make a note of that,» my Unison companion replied. «I trust you're getting some good photographs of the shrines, so that I can at least see them at one remove.»
«We'll know once I get the film developed.»
Thursday was our "free study" day. We had cleared our itinerary with Sakurada-sensei before we left Tokyo; she thought it was a bit thin but didn't complain because she knew we would all be getting tired by mid-week.
"Somebody tell me why we're visiting
Uji," Matsudaira-san insisted while Ueno-san tried clumsily to chat with Bunny-chan and Sakamoto-san offered to carry Minako's bag. Both girls refused the advances.
"First," I replied, "the trip gives us nearly an hour each way to relax, which we all need to do after two hectic days. Second, the oldest Shinto shrine still in existence is in Uji."
"Third," my fiancée added, "the tea there is the best in Japan."
"I acknowledge the historical importance of
Ujigami Shrine," he replied, "but the rest sounds like needless frivolity to me."
"It isn't needless to us," Naru-san muttered.
"That's because you're weak girls who couldn't hold a sword against me."
"Oh, really?" Makoto said crossly. Oh, dear. "You. Me. As soon as we get back to Tokyo. Shinai, unless you're willing to fight a 'weak girl' with a bokken."
"I see no reason to even acknowledge that statement."
And that got my ire up. "Matsudaira-san, I strongly recommend you accept Makoto's challenge. If you do not, then you will face a challenge from me. And I will insist that we not use shinai."
He looked me up and down, finally noticing just how muscular I was from the TSAB training, and how much extra reach I had over him. Then he turned to Makoto. "Your challenge is accepted, Kino-san. We will fight, using shinai, in the school's dojo after classes on Monday."
"I'll be there." Then she put a smile on her face. "Now, what else are we going to do in Uji?"
"Souvenir shopping, so we don't need to race around on Sunday morning with everybody who left that to the last minute," Ichigo-san suggested.
"That's an excellent idea," agreed Yamaguchi-san. Sakamoto-san, as usual, simply nodded in agreement without saying anything.
And, at that, it was time to get on the train for Uji.
We relaxed during the trip by the simple measure of Matsudaira and Makoto not sharing a four-person seat on the train. Then we were at Uji. We spent most of the morning at
Byōdō-in, taking the guided tour of the shrine and spending the rest of the morning in the attached museum.
Of course we had the local specialty,
cha soba, with lunch... and the freshly-made noodles were some of the best that I'd ever tasted.
In the afternoon, we did as we had promised Sakurada-sensei and visited
Ujigami Shrine. We also visited the nearby Zen Buddhist
Kōshō-ji Temple, then – as Ichigo-san had suggested – we went shopping.
During the shopping trip, Matsudaira-san took me aside quietly. "Donarudoson-san, I do not wish to hurt your fiancée when we fight on Monday. Is there any way that you can convince her to withdraw her challenge?"
"Matsudaira-san, I suggest that you look to your own safety. Makoto doesn't look like a sword fighter, I know, but her sensei has given her permission to use live steel."
That set him back. "I see. I will endeavour to provide her with a good fight, then."
"You could apologize to her, you know."
He shook his head. "No, it's too late for that now."
It wasn't just racism that permeated Japanese culture; sexism was just as strong. That, or Matsudaira-san was as stubborn as a mule.
Once we got back to Kyoto, loaded down with tea and tea services from Uji, we discovered we weren't the only ones who took advantage of our free study day to buy souvenirs – but those of us who had were in the minority of our class.
Continuing our lucky streak, we were the lucky group who got to stay downtown on Friday, seeing
Nijō Castle in the morning and the
Museum of Kyoto in the afternoon, among other tourist attractions. Matsudaira-san tolerated the visit to Nijō Castle and found the rest of the day to be a bore. By that point, we had learned to ignore what he thought... even though I privately agreed with him.
As a result of not needing to travel very far on Friday, we were relatively well-rested for Saturday. I had no idea what was going on during Aoi Matsuri; Ami had to explain it to all of us while we watched. Our two groups splurged and bought seats at
Shimogamo-jinja, roughly halfway along the procession route – even Matsudaira-san willingly paid for a seat – so we got the full festival experience. And even after all that, all I'm sure about is that it was a procession of a few hundred people dressed as Heian-era aristocrats, that had been taking place annually for a millennium. It seemed to me to be something that people did because they'd always done it, but what did a Canadian know about a millennium of history and tradition?
After the procession had passed, we toured the Shimogamo shrine, which predates the era of Kyoto being the capital of Japan. Bunny-chan hated the place while my dearest loved it; the kami enshrined there are associated with thunder.
And then it was Sunday – shopping day at Kyoto Station for everybody who had put off buying souvenirs until the last moment, while the rest of us had our pick of ekiben for the trip home. We pulled into Tokyo station early enough that Makoto and I could still get discount ekiben at the station rather than buying convenience-store bento for dinner.
Once we were home, one thing that Sakamoto-san, Yamaguchi-san, Ueno-san, Ryou, the ladies, and I agreed on was that we were never going to invite Matsudaira-san to join us in a group again. Ryou and I admitted that we'd made a mistake in inviting him to join our group in the first place.
Then it was Monday, and there was a kendo match after school.
I'll give Matsudaira-san credit; not only did he not back down, but he got the school's permission for the match.
Makoto didn't back down, either, as I expected. I insisted that she leave Donguri-no-ken with Hayate-chan that morning, and watching as she transformed to Sailor Jupiter and unbuckled her sword belt.
The kendo club's coach acted as referee. "This will be a three-point match. Hits will not count unless they are called," he announced as both participants selected shinai from the rack mounted on the wall.
"Agreed."
"Agreed."
"Then begin."
Matsudaira-san rushed at Makoto, calling "Head!" She blocked his blow easily with a minimum of effort, surprising everyone else in the room; formal kendo matches were not known for their participants blocking blows.
He backed up and rushed her again. "Chest!"
"Chest!" Makoto called... and, being taller than him and thus having a longer reach, hit his chest before he could hit hers.
"Point to Kino. Return to your starting positions."
Since it had worked so well last time, Matsudaira-san tried rushing Makoto again. Mind you, that's pretty much all that formal kendo matches allow, especially at the junior-high-school level. "Chest!"
Without moving, she announced, "Head!" Then she whacked him on the head. Nowhere near as hard as she had hit me with her electro-quarterstaff, thankfully.
"Point to Kino. It is now impossible for Matsudaira to win. Match goes to Kino."
Matsudaira-san removed his mask and bowed to Makoto. "I could not touch you, Kino-san. I acknowledge you as the superior swordsman, and I apologize for saying otherwise."
She removed her own mask and replied, "Your apology is accepted, Matsudaira-san. I trust that you will reflect on this match and learn from it, just as I plan to do."
"But of course." Then they both bowed to the referee and let the other club members use the dojo.
"Kino-san," the club's coach said before she could leave, "while your style is unorthodox, you have obviously been trained by a master swordsman. Might I be allowed to meet him, please?"
My estimation of the kendo club's coach's skills dropped slightly with that statement. Our style was only unorthodox when compared to sport styles; it was a perfectly normal combat style... and he should have noticed that.
"I apologize, sensei, but that might not be possible. Sakura-sensei is a very private person, and chooses carefully who she meets."
"I understand. Would you be interested in joining our team?"
"I have other demands on my time, sir. But I will think about it."
We all knew that she was saying 'no'. "I wish you luck in your future matches, Kino-san."
"Thank you, sir."
The gossip circuit was filled with reports of Makoto's skills in kendo before the end of the week. Some of the rumours were simply untrue, like the one that said she'd used live steel during the match; those rumours I squashed when I heard them.
Not that my dearest couldn't have used live steel if I hadn't insisted she leave Donguri-no-ken at home, but there was no reason for her to humiliate Matsudaira-san or risk legal attention by drawing a steel sword when he didn't have permission to use a similar sword of his own.
They boys' gossip circuit was also filled with rankings of the girls, because it was once again warm enough to hold P.E. classes outside. Makoto and Ami were, by common agreement, left off of most boys' lists – I suspect everybody knew they were my fiancée and second-closest friend and nobody wanted to make me angry – although Ueno-san was brave enough to mention to me that they were both in his top five, along with Bunny-chan, Minako... and Elmira-san.
I couldn't ignore him; we'd spent a week sharing a hotel room in Kyoto, after all, and we were sitting on the lawn beside each other. "Usagi-chan has a boyfriend, Ueno-san," I told him, not using my nickname for her so he'd know who I was talking about. "He doesn't attend Kuritsu Juban Chuugakkou."
He sighed and nodded, then said, "I guess I'm just choosing girls who are out of my reach. I keep doing that. Mizuno Ami-san and Urawa-san are a couple, Kino-san and you are a couple, Tsukino-san has a boyfriend, Sakamoto-san wants to be Mizuno Minako-san's boyfriend, and Bogudanoba-san isn't going to be in Japan forever."
"Hang on a moment there. Minako hasn't shown any interest in Sakamoto-san, as far as I've ever seen, and it takes two people to be a couple."
"So I still have a chance with her?" he asked with some hope in his voice.
I shrugged my shoulders. "As much as anybody else does. But she wants to be an idol, so she might have to consider herself to be off-limits to everybody in order to get the job that she wants."
He sighed again and said, "I can see that, yeah. Who's on your list, Donarudoson-san?"
"I am engaged to be married, so I don't have a list."
"Really? You don't notice anybody else as a girl, at all?"
I made a show of looking around, fully knowing that Ryou was close enough to overhear, then humoured Ueno-san. I whispered, "Hey, I'm engaged, not blind. If I was to have a list, Makoto would be at the top of it, of course. Followed by Ami, Usagi-chan, Minako, Naru-san, and Ichigo-san." All of whom, along with Ryou, Rei-san, and Setsuna-san, I would give my life for – and if it hadn't been for Ichiro's ability to put the two of us into Life Support Mode, I would have given my life for Setsuna-san when Dark Lady attacked. So I guess I had a list after all; it just wasn't the same kind of list as Ueno-san's.
"Osaka-san? Okay, she's cute enough to be on a lot of guys' lists, but a lot of girls here are cute. What's special about her?"
I couldn't tell him that she's Okuni. "She likes jazz music."
Ueno-san looked surprised. "She does?"
"She chose the music for her class' cafe during last year's culture festival."
"Oh, that kind of jazz. Er... you do remember Aoyama-san announced she's Ainu, right?"
Oh, dear. I really hoped that Ueno-san wasn't showing racism there. "I remember, and I don't care. Ichigo-san is a friend of mine and it doesn't matter to me who her parents are. So, why is Bogdanova-san on your list?"
He looked over to where the girls were playing softball, then said, "Look at how graceful she is."
So I looked. She was playing shortstop... and after a few minutes, I saw that, while she wasn't what I would call
graceful, she was more
dexterous than anyone else in our class. And that included Makoto and Ami, who had received some dexterity training from Ginga.
I'd have to mention to Minako that I'd figured out how Elmira-san was odd. Our Russian classmate was more than she appeared.
But then it was my turn to run the 100-metre sprint, so we had to stop talking. I made sure that I came second to Yamaguchi-san.
I brought up Elmira-san during that Friday's Conversational English club. And I had a hunch – which turned out to be a case of knowing without knowing how I knew – that a privacy bubble around the meeting was a good idea.
"What convinced you?" Minako asked.
"P.E. class. She appears to have had the same sort of dexterity training that Makoto and Ami got on Midchilda, and more of it."
"Do you think she's from the Lyrical reality?" asked my fiancée.
I shook my head. "No, there are plenty of groups on our planet that can give the same kind of training. There's no need to bring in extra-dimensional groups to provide the same thing."
"
Occam's razor," Ami added while nodding.
"Don't tell me she's a ninja," Minako said.
"That's doubtful," Ami replied. "Japan and Russia were at war in 1904, 1932, 1935, 1939, and of course ever since 1945. There are some people who think the only reason they haven't attacked us since then is the US military presence in Okinawa."
"I'm sure we could outlast them," insisted Makoto.
"Until we run out of soldiers," Ryou pointed out. "Sun Tzu pointed out the need for a stronger army than what one's opponent has, and there are a lot more Russians than there are Japanese."
Ami pulled the conversation back to the topic at hand. "Be that as it may, I can't imagine any Japanese organization teaching Russians our combat techniques so that they could be used against us."
"Who, then?"
Minako answered Makoto before I could. "She would have said something by now if she or her parents had ever been in a circus or some other performing group. The only other groups I can think of are government-funded."
Nobody said anything for a moment. We were busy jumping to the same conclusion, which my fiancée would point out shortly.
Finally, I said, "I'm not faulting your logic, Minako, but that doesn't necessarily mean she's a Russian agent of some sort. Why would they send an agent here, of all places?"
"Because our school uniforms look a lot like our Senshi uniforms," replied Makoto.
"They're not that close," Ami complained.
"Maybe not to a Japanese person, but to an outsider?"
Then I remembered something from just after the Missing Time. "Aw, crap. The cosmonauts who were on Mir. They remember the Missing Time, I think. They might have at least partial descriptions of all five of the original Senshi and me. At the least, 'noticeably tall young teen' describes both Makoto and me."
Ryou nodded. "We weren't really big on operational security back then. You and I were expecting the world to end, after all."
"And in how many futures will that come back to bite us on the butt?" Minako asked.
Ryou shook his head in sadness. "Eventually, all of them that I can see. Kasandara might be able to see one where it doesn't."
"We're building a house of cards here, everybody," Makoto pointed out, finally being the voice of reason in this conversation. "Sure, it looks good, but it'll fall apart unless we find something to hold it together. We need evidence."
Ami pulled out the Mercury Computer and scanned the classroom, eventually undermining my dearest's position. "I just found some. There's a transmitter hidden in Yamaguchi-san's desk. One of the databases that Ryou thought to bring back from the Lyrical reality says it's cutting-edge SVR issue for here and now."
"SVR?" I asked, privately amazed that I didn't somehow know what it stood for.
Ami enlightened us, stumbling over the pronunciation. "Sluzhba vneshney razvedki Rossiyskoy Federatsii, and I suspect Ichigo-san could say that better than I can; I'm not as good with Russian as I am with English or German." Which told me that she'd been studying German since she said she needed to learn it before Petz sent us to the Lyrical dimension. "The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service. It took over when the KGB was disbanded in 1991."
"And I was really getting to like her, too," Minako commented.
"She's still our friend," Ryou insisted. "At least, if we don't want our cover blown, we need to act that way seventeen times out of eighteen."
"Are you sure we haven't blown our cover already, though?" Minako asked. "The signals from that bug haven't been leaving this room since Rob put up his shield."
"Which would definitely look suspicious to me if I were in Bogdanova-san's place," I agreed.
"That's easy enough to explain," Ami said while typing a command on the Mercury Computer. Then there was a puff of white smoke from Yamaguchi-san's desk. "It's such a pity that the capacitor failed so soon."
"Ami, you're getting devious," I said in wonder. "I've been a bad influence on you."
She smiled. "Thank you. Although it's more Hayate and Hayate-chan's influence than yours, Rob."
Makoto asked, "Do we tell the others?"
"No," Ryou replied immediately. "Six times out of seven, they wouldn't be able to keep the secret in front of Bogdanova-san, and it's usually Usagi who would end up spilling the beans. Minako has had some acting training and the four of us have had TSAB training to show no reactions in the face of the enemy. We should be able to keep the secret."
Then I had another thought. "Oh! I need to run some experiments. Ami, may I speak with Meia tomorrow? I need her to scan me while I'm doing the tests."
Ami smiled. "I think that that can be arranged."
"If she
is a spy, she might think that you're a spy, too, Rob, but not a very good one."
"How do you figure that, Ichiro?" The two of us were discussing the matter of Comrade Bogdanova while Makoto made dinner.
"Immediately before your world's Spanish–American War a century ago, the United States created the first of its intelligence agencies in order to support their Navy. That agency is now known as the Office of Naval Intelligence."
"I see where you're going with that, but it's a specious comparison. Not everybody does things the way that the Americans do, so why would she assume that the Sailor Senshi even have a spy, let alone call attention to him by calling him an 'Oni'?"
"I'll point out that the Sailors do have a spy: Artemis."
"Whether we do or don't doesn't matter. Why would anybody
think that we do?"
"If Ms. Bogdanova is a spy," Ichiro pointed out, "then she'll have been trained to assume that every organization has spies attached. Even the TSAB is rumoured to have a spy agency somewhere inside the Inspector-General's office."
"That would explain what little I heard about
Inspector Acous," I admitted, not mentioning that the source of that information was the
StrikerS anime. "Getting back to us, why assume the Sailors' spies are called Oni? That's US Naval public terminology, but I'm Canadian and the rest of the publicly-known team are Japanese."
"Both Canada and Japan are known to be American allies."
I nodded. "Okay, that just barely explains the 'oni equals spy' bit. But, given all that, why would she think I'm not a good spy?"
"Because you're the obvious spy. Either the Senshi are amateurs or you're a distraction; either way, you aren't likely to be competent at spycraft."
"That makes sense. After all, the Senshi
are amateurs and I
am not particularly competent at spycraft."
"Ah, but she has no way to know that. She sees at most a half-dozen uniformed transforming heroines and two supporting males, and assumes by her training – if she's a spy – that you have a support staff somewhere. And you do have a support staff; I'm part of it."
"Dinner's ready!" my fiancée announced.
"We'll continue this discussion later," Ichiro said.
But we never did.
I went home with Ami the next day. After paying my respects to Saeko-mama and the three of us having lunch together – which included some of the tea that we had brought back from Uji – Ami, Meia, Ichiro, and I started running those experiments.
Specifically, just how invisible was I when I went invisible?
It turned out that I was only invisible to normal human vision. And that showed that there was a huge hole in my stealth capabilities.
It took Meia and Ichiro less than an hour to figure out how to close that hole, and another half-hour for me to learn how to bend near-ultraviolet and long-wave-infrared rays around me at the same time that I bent visible-spectrum light. That finally protected me from being seen by some animals and most thermal imaging cameras, at the expense of me not being able to radiate away all of my body heat.
Which helped going forward, but if our suspicions were correct, it did nothing for previous uses of my vision cloak.
"I must agree with Ichiro-niisan," Meia said. "The Russians have a reputation for being paranoid; it would only take one thermal camera in the right place for them, and the wrong place for us, for them to have seen us destroy that Kisenian flower in Vladivostok."
"And that would have been enough for them to get at least our heights and general builds, although I doubt they would have been able to make out our faces," I added with a sigh. "It's another piece of circumstantial evidence, but it does support the hypothesis that Bogdanova-san is a spy for the SVR, sent to find out who we are."
"Is there any reason why we can't simply tell her who we are?" Meia asked.
"Besides the fact that Russians have a reputation, which I'll grant is not fully accurate, of being untrustworthy?" I shook my head. "I'm not going to tell her, unless Ryou can tell me that doing so won't hurt any of us. Besides, I've been told that the Russians have a proverb: Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead."
"That's an unpleasant proverb," Ami commented.
The next day was Sunday, and we were back to being segregated by gender during combat practice. Not because anyone was worried about me being concussed by my fiancée again, but because Chiba-san finally decided to join us for training.
"It's good to see you here, Mamoru-san," Ryou said. "What convinced you to join us, if I may ask?"
"Both Usako and Naru-san told me how good Donarudoson-san is at stick fighting, I need an opponent who can test my skills."
"Shall we determine how good your skills are, then, Chiba-san?" Ichiro asked. "I'd prefer to see you run through a few kata before you spar with any of my students." Then he added, "Without transforming to Tuxedo Kamen, to begin with."
We watched him run through a few basic exercises. He was clumsy and slow, to the point where Yuuichirou-san said, "I think I might be the only fair match for you here, Chiba-san."
"I'm forced to agree," Ichiro added. "Please transform to Tuxedo Kamen and start over."
He did so, and his kata were no longer clumsy or slow. But they were predictable, even more so than most kata.
"You're seeing it too, right?" I asked.
Ichiro nodded. "Tuxedo Kamen-san, you have a problem."
"A problem? What is it?"
I didn't make the
Airplane! joke.
"You're relying on what Endymion learned during the Silver Millennium instead of learning the skills yourself in this life. As to why that's a problem, I seriously doubt that Endymion-san and Chiba Mamoru-san have exactly the same bodies."
"You're competent," Ryou added, "but you could be better. However, you're going to have to unlearn some bad habits before you can learn the good ones."
"And that means you're going to have to fight Rob until you can reliably hold your own against him."
"Hey," I said, "I'm pretty sure that Tuxedo Kamen-san is a better fighter than I am."
All Ichiro said was, "Trust your sensei. Now, I want to see the two of you fight."
So we found some padding that would fit over his white-tie-and-tails outfit and I used Mirage Hide to armour up, including a helmet.
Once we were both protected from serious harm, Ichiro gave us our sparring instructions. "Chiba-san, fight the way that you normally do. Go all out if you wish. Rob, get dangerous."
"You're sure?"
"Do it."
So I used every dirty trick Vita had taught me and knocked Tuxedo Kamen onto his butt seventeen times in a row.
"If it's any consolation," I said while helping him stand up the seventeenth time, "I wouldn't be able to do this if I was fighting fair."
"Thanks," Tuxedo Kamen said sourly.
Ichiro smiled. "That's not much incentive for you to fight fair, then, is it?”
I smiled back. "I suppose not, Captain Jack."
"Who?" Yuuichirou-san and Chiba-san asked.
"It doesn't matter," Ichiro replied. "Now that I've seen all this, I can put together your training program, Chiba-san. Go take a shower; we'll start breaking your bad habits next week."
Except that we didn't.
On the way from the shrine to the bus stop, with our fiancées by our sides, Ryou and I had a chat about training.
"Everybody else has been getting skill upgrades and new skills, Ryou. What about you?"
He smiled. "What Kasandara can do for me along with the TSAB combat skills I'm still learning are enough of an upgrade for me, as far as I'm concerned. Besides, fifty-one times out of fifty-two, precognition training won't work."
I chuckled. "You know telling me that breaks causality unless we try anyway."
"You break causality just by being here, Rob. Although Kasandara and I have learned how to work around that."
"Maybe Usagi-san fixed that when she reset the world. Or maybe visiting Midchilda and coming back reset my causality."
Ryou shook his head. "No, you're still difficult to predict. At least with precognition; I have a good read on your personality now and can do the mundane sort of predicting what you'd do in some situations. Especially if the situation involves Makoto being in danger."
"Yeah, you don't need to be a precog to know what I'd do in that sort of situation."
"Or what I'd do if our positions were reversed," my fiancée added.
Ami smiled. "The four of us are family, and we have been ever since we were banished to Midchilda. Of course we're going to protect each other whenever we need to."
We couldn't avoid Bogdanova-san; she sat right beside Ami in class. So we trusted in our acting ability to keep her from figuring out we had our suspicions about her. We were pretty sure that we weren't treating her differently.
She didn't appear to catch on. Although if we were right – which I was sure of because of that listening device we had burnt out and its replacement that showed up on Monday – she was probably as good an actress as Minako was, so there was no way to know whether she knew that we knew.
Anyway.
The Revealing Of The Lunches became a way to keep her busy. My dearest had bought Bogdanova-san a bento and she was using it in order to fit in, so, no matter what she brought, somebody asked for the recipe. Usually Bunny-chan, or Makoto, but Ichigo-san asked about some of the less common dishes that Bogdanova-san brought along, mentioning her visits to Korsakov.
And I asked about some of Naru-san's and Bunny-chan's side dishes, so that Bogdanova-san didn't appear to be singled out. That almost backfired once, though.
"Robu-san, you gave me the recipe for that potato and egg salad."
Oopsie. However... "It looks nothing like what my salad looks like, Bunny-chan."
"I know I have trouble with presentation. It still tastes good!"
As Makoto gave Bunny-chan some tips on how to plate her meals, Ryou and I brought the rest of the girls up to date on who was at the top of the boys' lists. We'd explained to Bogdanova-san months ago that these were popularity lists based on who was considered to be the prettiest or cutest girls in the school, so she didn't mind that the boys rarely mentioned her name.
"Japanese boys can be as immature as Russian boys," she commented.
"Boys are pretty much the same everywhere," Minako agreed. "Until they actually get tied down."
"Right," I said with a smile. "That's when we stop noticing anybody except our fiancées, if we know what's good for us."
"And don't you forget it!" my dearest insisted with a smile of her own.
I don't even remember what we discussed at the Conversational English club that Friday, except that it wasn't Senshi business. As long as that bug was in the classroom, we couldn't take the chance that we'd say something we shouldn't.
Ami visited my place that evening and we traded email with Midchilda. Including a message for Shario-chan from Yuuno-san about tying Mid telepathy in with Senshi technology. It would take a few weeks of work to make some specialized hardware, but it was possible.
Shario-chan took the schematics with her when we dropped her off at Naru-san's place the next day.
And then it was Sunday, May 30, and we went to Rei-san's shrine for combat practice.
"How badly do you think Chiba-san's going to end up being trounced today?" I asked.
"That depends on who he's fighting," Ryou replied.
"And whether our sensei will let us go easy on him," I added.
Ichiro nodded and said, "I want you to play fair this week, Rob. There's no need to humil-"
"Warning!" Kasandara suddenly announced. "Emergency! Ryou will die in one minute unless Ami is protected!"
I immediately put the strongest forcefields I could make around Ami and moved to stand in front of her, shoulder-to-shoulder with Ryou and Makoto. The Unison Devices moved to protect Meia; Ichiro told me later that this was just in case she needed to cast some healing spells in a hurry. Then I saw the car. A white hatchback, with a black star painted on the driver's door. I made sure to stay between it and Ami as I said to nobody in particular, "Oh, crap. What's Eudial doing here? Kaolinite's supposed to show up first."
The car's window rolled down, the driver – whoever she was – shot, and whatever the gun fired barely missed me... hitting Ryou instead.
All I could think as Ryou collapsed with his Pure Heart floating above his body was that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Stupid genre conventions.
Next chapter: Pure Pure Heart (not a Hokago Tea Time song)
Original text and original characters are copyright © 2022-2023 by Rob Kelk. "Rob Donaldson", "Ichigo Aoyama", "Meia", "Sakura", "Ichiro", "Elmira Bogdanova", "Sakamoto Kazuya", "Matsudaira Hanzō", "Ueno Daisuke", "Yamaguchi Toshiaki", and any representations thereof are copyright by and trademarks of Rob Kelk. "Kasandara" and any representations thereof are copyright by and a jointly-held trademark of Rob Kelk and Ian McLeod. "Minkao Jinguuji" is copyright by and a jointly-held trademark of Brent Laabs, Rob Kelk, Robert M. Schroeck, "DartzIRL", and Heather K. Please contact Rob Kelk if you want to use Ichigo Aoyama, Sakamoto Kazuya, Matsudaira Hanzō, Yamaguchi Toshiaki, Ueno Daisuke, or Elmira Bogdanova in your own stories.
Sailor Moon and the characters thereof are copyright © 1991-1997 by Naoko Takeuchi, TOEI Animation, Kodansha, TV Asahi, and their licencees, and are used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada,
R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
Codename: Sailor V, and the characters thereof are copyright © 1991-1997 by Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha, and their licencees, and are used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada,
R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
The Cherry Project, and the characters thereof are copyright © 1990-1992 by Naoko Takeuchi, Kodansha, and their licencees, and are used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada,
R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS and the characters thereof are copyright © 2006-2007 by Masaki Tsuzuki, Seven Arcs, and their licencees, and are used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
"Atelier Lucent" is an original element based on
Sailor Moon. It should not be confused with the real-world "Lucent Atelier" in the USA or "Atelier Lucente" in Italy. The author makes Atelier Lucent available to anyone who might need a name for Sailor Pluto's clothing studio.
Quote from
Drunkard's Walk S: Heart of Steel, copyright © 2017-2023 by Robert M. Schroeck, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
Quote from
Lilo & Stitch, copyright © 2002 by Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Feature Animation, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
Quote from
Superman, copyright © 1978 by DC Comics and Warner Bros., is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
Quote from
Ghostbusters, copyright © 1984 by Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Columbia Pictures, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
Quote from
Voltron, copyright © 1984–1985 by World Events Productions, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
Quote from
Darkwing Duck, copyright © 1991-1992 by Walt Disney Television, is used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
Quote from
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, copyright © 2003 by Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films, is misquoted and used as allowed under section 29.21 (1) of the Copyright Act of Canada, R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42.
My thanks to my prereaders, Brent Laabs, Robert M. Schroeck, and Heather K.
OMAKE:
My fiancée asked, «What's
The X-Files?»
«Oh,» I sent without thinking, «it's a TV show that's mentioned in a song called "One Week".»
When we got home, she got Shario-chan to find that song in my collection. Then she listened to it. Then she said, with menace in her voice, "'Sailor Moon has got the boom'? He
does know we're junior high students, right?"
"He did say he was thinking the wrong thing," I replied without actually answering her question.
Note to self: Don't ask the Barenaked Ladies to play at our wedding.
